


A War of Hearts

by OrderOfRevan



Series: The Knights of the Old Republic [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Redemption, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 14:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14334501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrderOfRevan/pseuds/OrderOfRevan
Summary: Bastila and Revan are called back to the front of the events of Knights of the Old Republic to drive away the last of the Sith remnants and at last bring peace to the Galaxy after two decades of continuous war. On the way, Revan must confront more of his lost past and the two of them must recognize the necessity of either acting on the feelings that brought them both back from the brink of the Dark Side or leaving the past behind them forever.





	1. Chapter One

Life was an endless stream of things that he wasn’t certain how to face, resembling the debris of the once great Star Forge, orbiting over some distant planet whose location he couldn’t erase from his mind. He felt like debris most days too, the scattered remains of some supposedly once great speaker and tactician whose life did little more than revolve around the wishes of the Jedi Order, keen on what they considered to be his rehabilitation.

Whether or not he could truly be rehabilitated the way they wanted him to be remained to be seen, but he wasn’t hopeful.

Not because he didn’t think he wasn’t capable of getting better, per se. No, it was pretty kriffing obvious to everyone but the Jedi Council that he had improved a lot since he was running around the Galaxy crushing all opposition underneath his heel, probably laughing maniacally. There was no way he ever would have bothered to turn against Alek in the first place if he hadn’t valued Bastila’s beliefs and the life of every single Galactic citizen more than his own ego, after all.

But the Council didn’t see it that way.

Which was why he wondered if they were calling him to another veiled disciplinary hearing to account for some innocuous comment he probably had no memory of making. That seemed to be their modus operandi, the more he thought about it, judging him for holes in his memory, big or small… And really, his memory probably had more holes than substance at this point.

Striding down the hall, he ignored the inquisitive glances of the younglings as they swarmed about him, feeling like an exotic animal on display at the Corellian Zoo, and not for the first time. Everyone here knew who he was, on command of the Council itself, and though it had won him derision with the elder members of the Order, the children especially looked at him with admiration.

An admiration that he was wary of.

Taking a sharp left, Revan passed a row of windows lined with pillars, looking out over the pulsing city of Coruscant. He could feel the core of the life there, the heart of the Living Force, his attunement expanding every day since his revelation on the Leviathan. For a moment he paused, looking out at the veritable ocean of buildings surrounding the Jedi Temple, his mind drifting to the day of Alek’s funeral.

The light slipped through the buildings in the same way it had those months ago, though really it felt like years since that day. Raising his hand, he pressed his palm against the glass, feeling the cold winter air through it, watching the last pink-gold rays of light fade away through the streets and alleys of the vast city. The only thing he could think as he stared blankly at the skyline was how much he could empathize with whatever part of himself remembered longing for freedom from the rules and restraints the Jedi Order provided.

To Bastila, it was a comfort, but…

Bastila.

Revan turned around, his hand falling to his side as he became aware of Bastila’s presence, pressing against his mind as it always did when she grew near. She looked surprised to see him, pretty face slack, mouth hanging open ever so slightly, and against his better judgment he felt his lips twitch in response, unable to stop himself.

Stepping forward, he placed a single finger underneath her chin, closing her mouth. “That happy to see me?” he asked, feeling the heat radiating from her face for a moment before she stepped away.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Bastila said in her typically frank manner, staring him directly in the eyes, though her face was still red. “Though perhaps I should have been. The only times the Jedi Council seems to summon me, it’s somehow involved with you.”

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Is that a bad thing? It means you get to spend more time with me.”

Revan felt a wave of flattery waver between them, his smile gentling as he turned back towards the window, gratified in knowing that he’d guessed right. Funny how things had changed, how something he might have once said as a joke had somehow become a sincere expression of emotion that she somehow reciprocated… No matter how awkward things were between them, at least their relationship would never be based around fear and hesitation ever again.

“Yes,” Bastila said dryly as she came to stand beside him, “It’s your charming sense of humor. I’m afraid it always keeps me coming back.”

“Glad to know,” Revan said, glancing towards her from the corner of his eye. “They must think my sense of humor is going to be a bad influence on you.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what they’re concerned about,” Bastila said, the barest hint of a smile touching her lips, “your sense of humor.”

He grinned, stepping away from the window, changing the subject before it strayed into more emotional territory… Something they could not afford in a building full of people with an empathic connection to the Living Force. He wouldn’t put her future here in danger, would not put her hopes at risk for his own selfish reasons… Because even if she indulged his flirting, it didn’t mean that she was ready to risk everything just to be with him.

“So you’ve been summoned as well?” he asked, motioning for her to follow as he continued his journey down the hallway. “It can’t be disciplinary, then. They may be cross with you, but they’d never scold me in front of you, lest they face our united front.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Bastila said, “Though in all honesty, I feel they scold me just as often as you now that we’ve returned from our mission.”

She did not need to speak for him to feel her uncertainty and regret, her emotions triggering a response in him that he briefly warred with… Though in vain. Revan knew she felt his response, the regret that came with the fear that he had somehow ‘ruined’ her, one he knew was irrational but still haunted him during his longest and most sleepless nights regardless. Carefully he reached out, his hand briefly touching her arm, static dancing across his fingers as he did so, just like it always seemed to.

For a moment he imagined the sparks between them, flying the way they had during that one moment in the Ebon Hawk… But quickly withdrew, knowing that the thoughts would be a burden to Bastila.

And a burden was something he never wanted to be to her.

“You’re strong willed,” he said, his hand falling uselessly back to his side, feeling heavy on his wrist. “The Jedi Council doesn’t like that in their chosen weapons. They prefer submissiveness, deference, all that stuff. It’s why they hated me the moment I stopped playing their games.”

Bastila’s brow furrowed deeply, her expression one he had seen on her face many times before when she was deep in thought. Turning his face away, he walked beside her down the hallway in silence, contenting himself with counting the number of padawan braids he saw as Jedi passed them silently on all sides, not nearly as vibrant as the younglings. What was it about Jedi that stole their senses of humor, he wondered? And why had he kept his when his life could be told in shifts between black and white, monster and savior, villain and hero?

“I don’t want to admit you’re right,” she said at last. “It would mean admitting that Malak was right about me, and that is… difficult to accept.”

He felt her eyes on him and turned his head to face her, staring down into her face, making sure to keep his expression neutral even as she continued speaking, “But I know you’re right, and that you would never lie to me. I’ve always known we were alike from the very day I met you.”

“Give yourself more credit, Bastila,” Revan said, painfully aware of the number of Jedi around them thinning, of the way the hall narrowed and the thick walls were replaced by windows on each side. “You’re much more sensible than I am, I mean… Look at you, actually trying.”

Surprise flashed across their Bond, though he didn’t have time to question her about it, the doors to the Council Chamber coming up on them all too soon. Immediately they both lapsed into silence, her form bathed in the soft peach light of twilight, chin held high and proud as it always was when she was about to face something she was afraid of.

He admired that in her but longed to comfort her anyway, his fingers itching with the desire… A desire he locked deep inside of him as he turned his head to face the large double doors, preparing himself for what was to come. It was just Vrook Lamar and the other High Robes. He’d dealt with them all before, after all, laughed in their faces before and chosen to define his own destiny.

It was a shame he didn’t remember any of it.

* * *

Twelve pairs of judgmental eyes stared at him in utter silence the moment he walked into the room, immediately leaving him with the nagging feeling that, while this may not be a scolding, it was still severe. He could feel how on edge Bastila had grown, too, her anxiety feeding back into him in a loop, forcing him to suppress two sets of feelings, rendering him grateful that he had so much experience pretending he was unaffected by his emotions.

Experience that was the only thing right now between him and those eyes shifting from judgment to anger.

“Welcome, young Jedi Shan,” Master Tokare said, nodding his faded moss green head, lantern eyes turning toward Revan, “Jedi Ollus.”

The name made him flinch visibly, a reminder of an entire life he’d lived before he’d been reborn in a womb of death and fire. He knew it hadn’t gone unnoticed, but right now he didn’t really give a damn, all things taken into equal consideration. He’d already expressed his discomfort at being called anything other than Revan, but… Well, for them, Revan was a reminder of their failure, and they would never acknowledge that Revan could be the man who had both ruined them and saved them. For them, he had to be Jorren Ollus the Jedi, or he could be nothing at all.

“Masters,” Bastila said, bowing, Revan mimicking her movements, “You’ve summoned us?”

“Indeed we have,” Master Tokare responded, eyes still trained on Revan, though he motioned with a single small hand for someone to join them in the center of the circle, “and for good reason. Allow me to reintroduce Admiral Dodanna. You met her at the Battle of Rakata Prime, as I’m sure you recall.”

“High Admiral Dodanna now,” said a dark haired woman that Revan realized he did recognize, mind flashing with memories of long ago battles like photon torpedoes exploding against a Star Destroyer’s hull. “It’s good to see you again, Supreme Commander Revan, though I suppose that’s not your title any longer.”

Supreme Commander.

The words slid into place, though they still felt alien, like the title couldn’t have ever belonged to him. He’d grown used to being Cass, and then he’d had to come to terms with the concept of Darth Revan, and the dust had only just settled in his mind from that revelation. There was no way he would have time to contend with or process all the other facets of Revan’s identity, let alone accept them in full.

“High Admiral,” he said, forcing the words. “It’s good to see you again. How goes the Sith clean up?”

“Funny that you should mention that, actually,” the High Admiral said, casting her eyes towards the Jedi Council. “I believe that’s what you’ve been called here to discuss.”

“Indeed it is,” Master Tokare said, bowing his head, Revan’s feeling of unease mutating into a sick feeling of anticipation. “The High Admiral approached us asking for Jedi assistance in routing the last of the Sith Forces. Given the circumstances behind what many are calling the Jedi Civil War, we felt it all too appropriate that we offer her our support.”

“And this involves Revan and myself?” Bastila asked, breaking her silence and stepping forward, staring into Master Tokare’s face with determination etched into her smooth features.

“Of course, Jedi Shan,” said a woman with Echani-pale hair and sharp features from her seat off toward one side of the Council Chamber, a woman eerily familiar to Revan. “Revan has much to make up for, as you well know. You would hardly be the first young woman he’s dragged towards the Dark Side, my dear, the only difference being that this time we may hold him fully responsible.”

Revan felt Bastila’s anger flare and immediately spoke to prevent further confrontation between Bastila and the Council. “Right. Fully responsible. So you’re sending me out to the field to take out the last of the Sith?”

Bastila’s eyes snapped to him, but he ignored her in favor of glaring the pale-haired woman down, knowing that as long as they were angry with him, she would be spared the worst of their ire. His very existence guaranteed her their pity, which was enough to temper the worst of their dissatisfaction with her ‘progress’ since she had Fallen and returned from the Dark Side.

“You will go, accompanied by Jedi Shan,” Master Vrook Lamar finally said, his voice as severe as it always was. “Together, you will help the Republic Forces route the last of the Sith and bring your pasts to rest. We believe that this is the only thing that can truly bring the both of you peace and allow you to find purpose anew.”

Peace? Purpose?

Revan doubted it but said nothing, steeling his jaw and staring into the faces of the Jedi Council one by one. They all looked so far away somehow, like they were living in a different world, one that Revan could never reach even if he were to dedicate his entire life to pursuing whatever peace and purpose they had found in the Light Side of the Force.

“I had thought, considering your successes during the Mandalorian Wars, that you would be the perfect candidate to assist the Navy in our campaign against the Sith Remnants,” the High Admiral said, breaking the silence. “I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded, but you once commanded an entire third of the Republic Military, and now that you’ve been persuaded to return to our side…”

She trailed off, perhaps only just now becoming aware of the tension in the room, of the way Bastila stood statue still, of Revan’s dark gaze as he locked eyes with Master Vrook, of the silent energy between the Council and their summoned Prodigal Knight, ready to snap at any moment.

“I would be honored to assist you,” Revan said, his eyes flickering towards Dodanna. “As the Council says, I have a certain personal investment in ensuring peace is finally brought to the Republic after these twenty years of constant war.”

“As do I,” Bastila confirmed, moving a half step closer to Revan’s side, his chest swelling with a protective feeling that he was certain did not originate from himself. “We are both at your service, High Admiral. I have assisted the Republic Navy before and am dedicated to seeing this through until the end.”

The High Admiral looked between the both of them, stealing wary glances at the High Council, seeming to sense that her time in this room was done.  She addressed Revan and Bastila, this time speaking to them as respected equals and valued allies, “You’ll leave with the fleet at 0400 hours tomorrow. I think you’ll find the Fleet Admiral a familiar face, something I hope will facilitate teamwork and a spirit of camaraderie.”

Revan arched his eyebrows, but didn’t have time to question her, though he of course had his suspicions… Suspicions Bastila apparently shared, if the look she gave him was any indication.

The High Admiral smiled before turning back towards the Council, bowing to them. “Thank you,” she announced, “I’m sorry for the interruption, but I now have to return to my office and file a report about this meeting to High Command. With your leave.”

“May the Force be with you, High Admiral,” said Master Tokare, smiling in his wizened way, silence falling as they all listened to her footsteps recede, echoing down the corridor.

For a long moment after she left the entire Council Chamber fell into a hush, everyone waiting for something to happen, for the equilibrium to shift and then settle. Revan and Bastila stood facing it, that sense of anxiety and dread from before returning, twisting between them like a great static dragon winding its way through the Wroshyr Trees of Kashyyyk. Closing his eyes, he took a moment to remember the Jedi Code, and when he opened them again, the world had come back into focus.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

“You will go, you will find peace and purpose, and when you return,” Master Tokare said, breaking the silence with his stern, paper-thin voice, “you will both submit yourselves for retraining.”

He felt Bastila’s shock vibrate through him, though he himself felt numb, part of him having expected the words since the moment he had returned to the Temple all those months ago. If he felt surprise at all, it was surprise that it had taken this long to ask it of him, but really… What did they expect? That the third time would be the charm? That he would just suddenly have a different personality? Be a different person? That he would stop being a bad influence overnight?

“Retrain?” Bastila asked, her voice wavering with a note of incredulity that was not lost on the Jedi High Council.

“Yes, retrain,” the pale-haired woman said once more, shifting in her seat, her equally pale eyes settling on Revan, gaze bleeding venom. “You are still young, Jedi Shan. You have time to recover from your brief flirtation with the Dark Side. This man has not completely corrupted you.”

Revan grit his teeth, but before he could say anything Bastila spoke, fire barely constrained in the depths of her icy-blue eyes, “With all the respect due to you, Masters, I made my own choices, and without Revan I would never have come back to the Light.”

This time it was the pale-haired woman who got cut off, and by Master Vrook no less. “Be at peace, Master Atris,” he said, holding up his hand. “Jedi Shan, regardless of the cause behind your Fall, the solution must be the same. You and Jedi Ollus both require retraining; training you will agree to submit to upon your return, lest you be expelled from the Order.”

Bastila was cowed into silence, her mouth opening and closing briefly before she bowed, her shoulders releasing their proud tension as she sloped, defeated. “Yes, Masters.”

It had had happened in an instant, her resignation and acceptance of their ultimatum, but Revan didn’t blame her. What else was she supposed to do?

What were either of them supposed to do?

Glancing back to Bastila, he took a deep breath and steeled himself for the inevitable.

Right now he had twelve great reasons to walk out that door and never look back, but one perfect reason to stay.

“Yes, Masters,” Revan repeated, bowing before them.

His words were greeted only with silence, as if obedience was only to be expected.

* * *

It felt later than it was when Revan finally made his way to one of the landing pads, imagining all the stars shining in the sky beyond the layer of light pollution. Out here it was much cooler, enough that he could feel the heat draining from his face and his sense of serenity returning as he paced the outer edge of the landing pad where a small shuttle was docked. Sinking down, he slung his legs over the edge and stared out at the sparkling lights of the city, picturing himself out there instead of here, where the air of serenity had started to feel like a prison.

Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes, imagining himself anywhere but here — On Mannan, or Tatooine, or even somewhere out there in the city, somewhere without the Jedi. Around him, he could still feel the pulse of the Living Force, basking in the comfort of it, in the stability of it as it surrounded and filled him. Here, on the Mountain, in the Temple, the Force welled and then swelled, spilling out over the entire planet, a web of life and consequence.

Shivering slightly as a cold wind rustled his robes, Revan opened his eyes and looked up at the moon, losing himself in thought.

And inevitably, his mind went to Bastila.

Bastila.

This was important to her, to join the Jedi again, to heal and move on, and he would do anything to support her in that.

He was here for her now, here in this Temple, here constantly being judged for things he couldn’t remember.

Things that weighed on him nonetheless.

Taking a deep breath, he rubbed the back of his neck, a headache beginning to mount just behind his eyes… though that chain of thought was interrupted by an all too familiar voice calling to him from across the platform. Turning his head, Revan looked, watching Carth Onasi approach him… But not in that once familiar orange jacket or the black and red uniform of a Republic Captain, but in the striking red of the Admiralty.

Pushing himself to his feet, Revan brushed the dust off of his brown trousers and tunic, a smile coming easily to his lips. Reaching up, he tugged his fingers through his shaggy, dark hair, taking a few steps forward before clasping arms with his friend; a friend he didn’t think he would see for many years. A friend a felt more grateful to see than he ever could have imagined, in spite of all of their ups and downs.

“You’re the familiar face Dodonna mentioned?” Revan asked, pulling away, looking down into Carth’s clean-shaven face. “Well, less familiar since you’re so official looking now… Admiral Onasi, I presume?”

“Damn right, Mister Prodigal Knight,” Carth grinned. “Not that I’m the only one who got a shave and a haircut. You know, you never struck me as the sort of man to have a baby face, but without that beard of yours, you look… Well, you don’t really look your age.”

Revan laughed at that, barely feeling the cold anymore. “Considering I’m getting close to forty, I should probably thank you for that.”

Carth turned around, looking back towards the Temple, heaving a sigh as they both stood in the shadow of the building, the lights on the landing pad like islands in the darkness. For a moment all was quiet, the faint noise pollution of Coruscant and the sound of the structure creaking in the wind at this altitude. Then the sound of faint footsteps sounded, growing louder with the moment.

Revan watched, the shape in the darkness appearing first as a pale blue, gaining features as it approached, until it was obvious it was Bastila, walking towards them with a strained expression on her face. At first she didn’t see Carth, walking right past him to embrace Revan, her body small and warm against his chest. He could feel her heartbeat, could smell the simple scent of her herbal soap, hear her breathing as her warm, wet breath trapped itself in the folds of his robes and he wrapped his arms securely about her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, voice muffled by fabric and his torso.

“I can’t imagine what you have to apologize for,” he muttered. “It’s not as if you came up with the plan to ship us off to deal with the Sith and then cart us both off to Jedi boot camp for the foreseeable future.” He pulled away, hands still firmly on her shoulders, looking down into her face, feeling the affection radiate from him so freely that he was sure even Force Blind Carth could sense it. “We do this, and we enjoy it. Whatever comes of it comes of it.”

He would stay for her, he repeated to himself, though inside there was the fear that she was the only thing he had to leave for, that she was the only reason that he was still living at all. What would he find, if he lost her? If he had to go out there right now without her? He knew that he could survive, but would he have any meaning left?

What was he if not an empty shell?

Drawn from his thoughts by the warmth of Bastila’s hand against his, Revan offered a smile to reassure her, though he knew she could feel his uncertainty. There was nothing he could really hide from her when they shared their feelings and dreams across a Bond that could never be severed, an intimate Bond that linked them to one another across space itself, created when she had reached into his mind and touched the essence of his being.

“This isn’t what you want,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to stay.”

“I have nowhere else to go,” he told her out loud. “There’s only you. I told you, I love you.”

Her face turned soft, then reddened when Carth cleared his throat making her quickly step away, head snapping towards him.

“Carth,” she said flatly. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” he replied, grinning as her her entire face turned as red as a Sith Commando’s armor, her brows knitting together in clear enraged embarrassment. “Good to see you, too, by the way. I’m glad we’ll be working together again. It’s only been a few months, but I’ve really missed the both of you… Probably because I’ve been spending this entire time chasing Sith through Hutt Space.”

“Hutt Space?” Revan asked, placing a calming hand on Bastila’s shoulder and watching the tension drain from her body.

“The Sith have some of their officers hiding on Nar Shaddaa. They were profitable to the Hutt Cartel and the Exchange, so we don’t have much cooperation from the locals,” Carth said with a bit of a shrug. “Better than Tatooine, as far as I’m concerned.”

“So we shall be heading to Nar Shaddaa?” Bastila asked, face now a soft shade of pink, her brow furrowing further. “Where else? I assume you know.”

“Mannaan. The Sith army itself is holed up there and has the city under siege rule,” Carth said, then hesitated briefly, his dark eyes flickering between the two of them. “And Korriban. The last of the Dark Jedi are there, barricaded inside the Academy. It was the High Admiral’s hope that Revan’s military genius would be able to help get us out of this.”

Revan pressed his lips together in a thin line and suppressed a sigh, aware intimately of Bastila’s reserved yet deeply concerned glances. “0400 hours then, Admiral Onasi?”

“Please don’t call me that. It sounds so condescending coming from you,” Carth muttered. “But yes, 0400 hours, bright and early.”

“We Jedi are early risers anyway,” Bastila said simply, though her expression quickly softened, her eyes darting from side to side as if searching for eavesdroppers. “I will be glad to leave here for awhile and clear my head. I’ve always done better with things to occupy my mind, and these last few months have been nothing but interviews and guided meditations.”

“That sounds boring as hell,” Carth said, “but war isn’t exactly exciting either, just a whole lot of anxiety all the time.”

“I remember,” Bastila agreed, “but I have a duty to see this through, and at least I’ll be doing something.”

“I can’t help but agree,” Revan said, “though I’m afraid I’ll have to insist we cut this conversation short and catch up tomorrow. Jedi may be early risers but that means we have to be early sleepers, too.”

“That figures,” Carth said with a bit of a smile. “Take care of yourselves, okay? I’m not sure this will be as good for you as you think. There’s a lot of demons waiting out there in the Galaxy for you.”

Bastila, a shade paler than she had been a moment ago, turned and walked away wordlessly, and Revan, as he chased after her, couldn’t help but think that those demons were the exact reason why this mission would benefit them both.

Sometimes, you just needed a resolution, no matter how messy or brutal that resolution ended up being.


	2. Chapter Two

Revan stood aboard the bridge of the ship, staring out at the hyperspace lines as they sped toward the ocean planet of Mannaan. People milled around him, talking about the situation on the planet, communicating with the other ships in the fleet, and generally overseeing the upkeep of their forces. It was familiar to him, but not in an uncomfortable way, more like stepping into a comfortable old pair of boots than the uncanny feeling of deja vu he sometimes had.

Ahead of him Carth issued orders, talking to the other officers on the bridge in hushed voices. The uniforms were the same as they were ten years ago, some part of him recognized, though it almost seemed like a hazy dream to think he’d been part of this back then when really… His life had just been the last year or so, in his estimation. It was odd to think that he was verging on 40 and almost everything he knew about himself was hearsay.

“You’re reminiscing again,” Bastila said, pulling him from his thoughts the way she always had a tendency to. “You have that look on your face.”

“I have a look?” he asked, arching a single brow. “Gee, you could have told me sooner. Having a ‘look’ is a liability, you know. I can’t afford to show weakness to my enemies.”

She frowned sharply, and he laughed, turning his head back to the viewport, the barest hint of a smile still on his lips.

“You’re deflecting.”

“Absolutely.”

“Please stop.”

Looking at her from the corner of his eye, he caught her still frowning at him in disapproval and found that he was unable to deny her. Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling as he spoke. “It’s nothing bad. I’m just thinking about the passage of time.”

“And?” she prompted, her voice dropping into the gentle tone he knew was reserved only for him; the one that made his resistance melt away.

Dropping his hands back to his side, he turned to face her, crossing his arms back over his chest. “And how much I don’t remember. I feel both ancient and like an infant at the same time. It’s… conflicting, but most things are, so I’m not really worried about it. I’m never going to recover all of my memories so I’m just… Going to live with it.”

Bastila seemed primed to say something, her dark brows knit together over her blue eyes, but she stopped herself, eyes shifting to stare instead at some point over Revan’s shoulder. Pausing, Revan looked, finding Carth staring up at him, annoyance surging at the sight of him, though he fought the sensation back. It wasn’t Carth’s fault that Bastila was such a private, reserved person, and… and they hadn’t really been talking about anything they hadn’t argued about before, anyway.

“What is it?” Revan asked, turning his full attention toward Carth.

“I have to ask what the plan is when we reach Mannaan. We’ll be coming out of hyperspace in another six hours, so I think it’s best to relay our orders to the rest of the fleet now.” He paused, hesitating for a moment. “You know about the blockade, obviously. I sent you the report so I assume you read it.”

Revan had read the report, of course.

There was a blockade around Mannaan, imposed by the Sith Army remnants from the Embassy who had taken control of Ahto City. The Republic Forces there had already been compromised by the Kolto Mining scandal, and most of them had either been killed in the Sith coup, or driven from the planet before the blockade’s establishment. There had been little news coming from the planet ever since, and they had no intel on the current situation on the surface of the planet, but…

“You’re asking me for feedback?” Revan arched his eyebrows at Carth, who only looked confused, leaving Revan feeling… nervous, honestly.

There was something in his expression that made Revan wary, and told him that he wasn’t going to like what Carth was about to say. Steeling himself, he drew up to his full height, looking down into Carth’s face, watching him run a hand over his chin in exasperation. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Considering I have no idea what you’re talking about, I would guess the answer to that question is ‘no’,” Revan said flatly.

“Kriffing hell, the Jedi are negligent. I thought you knew!” Throwing up his hands, Carth spun to face the front of the bridge, “Revan, this isn’t my command.” He paused and Revan wondered if it was for dramatic effect or just to be annoying. “It’s yours.”

The words weren’t exactly unexpected, but his chest still constricted in response, the first pangs of panic setting in. Swallowing the feeling down, he reminded himself that now was not the time or the place to have this sort of reaction, and his body began to relax, though his mind still reeled with the implications. Commander? Him?

“Kriffing hell,” his hand automatically moved to the back of his neck again, rubbing distractedly. “Kriffing hell, really? What were they thinking?”

“You almost destroyed the Republic, and you’re asking that?” Carth said, Bastila casting him a wicked look as she reached out, placing a hand on Revan’s arm.

“You routed the Mandalorians,” she said. “Without you, the Republic may very well have been destroyed, and as far as the Republic itself is concerned, you are still that man. They don’t know about your memory loss, they know only that you are the savior who prevented the Sith from destroying them after your miraculous redemption.”

“So they just want me to pick up where I left off?” Revan asked her incredulously, keeping his voice low, conscious of the morale of the men and women around him. “They expect me to just… Step back into the Commander’s chair like it hasn’t been five years since I… Since…” He took a breath. “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I can’t remember doing any of those amazing things I know I had to have done.”

Bastila’s grip on his arm tightened. “You excel at doing the impossible, Revan. You’ll succeed at this; you always do.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but felt himself sway, the words stolen from his lips by a sudden sense of vertigo as the world in front of him spun and swam. Stumbling forward, bracing himself against the Command Console, the voices of Carth and Bastila call3d to him from some remote place, a place that he couldn’t reach even though he desperately wanted to. Squeezing his eyes shut, he hoped that it would go away, but when he opened them again, nothing had changed.

Forcing himself to straighten, Revan inhaled slowly through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, sounds and sights slowly growing sharper and clearer until he stood once more on the bridge of a Star Cruiser. For an instant it seemed like his mind was bridging two realities, the one in which he could feel hands on his arms, lowering him slowly to the ground, and the one in which he stood on the bridge of some other ship in some other time, watching the crew on the bridge swell around him.

Then, his mind was only in one place and Revan grew increasingly certain that it wasn’t the present as he looked down at his hands and found them clad in black gloves, accompanied by a large, bulky robe that he had never seen before. Swallowing thickly, he looked around, knowing he had passed out and that now he was dreaming. And not a normal dream, but the sort of dream he hadn’t had in a good long time, the sort of dream that was actually a memory in disguise.

Stepping towards the command console, past the bodies of the memory officers of his dreams, Revan looked out the viewport to see a familiar world suspended in the void of space before him. Blue, brown, and industrial grey-white, Taris’ atmospheric halo cast a soft glow over the Mandalorian Dreadnaughts orbiting the planet, still free of the black and red impact craters that Revan was willing to bet wouldn’t exist for another ten years.

Swallowing, he crossed his arms over his chest, staring for a long moment at the memory given life, lost once again in the strange temporal dissonance never far from the surface of his consciousness. All was quiet for that second, as if the dream itself existed in a state of suspended animation, one that would continue forever if he willed it… But it was not to be.

Just like that, the ship lurched beneath him, and once more he found himself bracing his hands against the command console, catching his own reflection on the surface of the transparisteel, black-and-red Mandalorian mask staring back at him. His breath hitching, he reached up a hand to trace the distinctive t-line of his own masked face, suddenly hyper aware of the sound of his own breath, disturbed by how comfortable and familiar the weight seemed.

Snapped from his thoughts by another blast as the cruiser shuddered, he noticed the sudden appearance of a woman in Jedi robes just behind him, her reflection showing she stood only a few feet away. She, too, was eerily familiar, her pale eyes, dark hair, and tan, freckled face flirting with his ability to put a name to her, but he had no more time to contemplate the moment she started to speak in a deep, level voice.

“Your Orders, Commander? The Neo-Crusader Dreadnaughts are firing on us.”

For a moment, Revan panicked, but the knowledge slowly settled in the back of his mind as he looked out at the enemy fleet, tingling in his consciousness with the assurance of someone who knew the battlefield as well as he knew every groove and ridge of the lightsaber at his own hip. Shuddering, he opened his mouth to speak, a realization slowly dawning on him, like a sunrise breaking over the waters of  a distant ocean world.

Revan was a predator.

And the Mandalorians?

They were his prey.

* * *

“Surik,” he said, voice deep and tinny from behind the mask, “what do you know about the Mandalorian’s communications relays?”

He didn’t turn around, staring instead at the dark and mangled shapes of the Dreadnaughts, picturing in his mind all the curves of the Neo Crusader armor. In his head he could almost hear the voice of Cassus Fett, rough as the Alderaanian mountains, defying him to break the blockade and free Taris from his control. Leather creaked as he gripped the command console more firmly, though if Surik noticed she gave no indication.

He smiled grimly.

“Are you asking what frequency they’re communicating on or if they’re sending a jamming signal?” Surik asked, her reflection on the surface of the polished metal betraying her insecurity as her hands restlessly stroked the hilt of the saberstaff at her side.

“I’m asking for everything you know,” he replied, turning around to look down into her face, her expression refusing to give away what her hands knew all too well. “Come on, Surik. I need to send Malak a message, and I need to know if it’s safe to do so.”

His words made her hesitance melt away and she nodded grimly, her eyes glued to the planet quietly suffering underneath the watchful eye of the warring fleets. Right now it was peaceful, but soon the void around the planet would combust with blasts of plasma and the heat of fuel as fighters took to their battle stations to fight what might otherwise be a war of attrition if it weren’t for Revan’s sudden burst of inspiration.

“They’re monitoring all known frequencies,” Surik said, her eyes reading the instruments he could have read himself if he didn’t feel such a burgeoning sense of responsibility to teach her. “But their attention is focused on the planet. I’d bet money on the fact that they’re controlling all communications on the ground and in the void.”

Revan pressed his lips together and then sighed, tapping his fingers idly against the front of his helmet for a moment before leaning back over the console. His eyes scanned the room before falling on a plain looking woman in the uniform of a Republic officer, lights flashing in his head as the seed of his plan began to grow.

“Starchaser,” he said, watching the woman turn to face him. “Send a coded message to the Ascendant Star. Tell General Malak he’s to engage the Mandalorians here and make sure he scrambles the fleet’s fighters.”

“Sir,” she said, turning back towards her console and immediately following his orders.

The part of him that wasn’t invested completely in the dream felt… odd, watching her snap to his command the way she did. There was no hesitation, and it felt right, it felt like it was meant to happen, and… And that this, for better or for worse, was his calling. Swallowing, he quashed the urge to fight against the dream, turning instead to face Meetra Surik.

“Take over here,” he said simply, “and assemble the other Revanchists in the shuttle bay with a small strike force.”

“Commander?” she asked, her brows arching high, fists clenching at her sides in what he suspected was a show of restraint to keep herself from outright questioning his orders.

“Taris is a big place, Surik,” he said by way of explanation, swiveling his head to look back at the planet. “We don’t have much of a report about the status of the surface itself, but I know people and there is no way there’s not a rebel faction on the surface. So I’ll find them, I’ll find them and I’ll give them what they need, and I’ll take the planet back that way.”

He watched as understanding broke across her features and she nodded, turning back out towards the command deck. For a moment, pride flared inside of him, intermingled with his very much real present time confusion and the longing for the presence of a friend he could barely remember, a woman whose fate was not known to him.

Revan doubted it ever would be.

“So we’re a diversion?” she asked, curious instead of accusatory.

“No,” he said. “You’re the hard place and I’m the rock. Now look alive, Surik - We have work to do.”

Her smile felt like a secret shared between old friends, one he returned, though she couldn’t know that.

His mask hid everything from everyone.

And though that may not be ideal for facing his friends, it was perfect for presenting the unshakable image of a leader… And a god of death and destruction, immovable and unfeeling. Revan reached up as he walked from the Bridge, touching the mask once more, static tingling beneath his fingers as if he could feel the power of the Darkness burgeoning inside him even in a dream.

The mask that had become the man.

Around him, the dream seemed to turn to static, half remembered snippets of conversations, voices whose familiarity nagged at him. So much of him had died on the Behemoth, his memories gone up in flames like so much plasma eating what atmosphere was left to explode into the void of space. What was left was charred shrapnel and electrons, particles so small that they barely stayed in place, waiting for the first moment they could jump ship and leave him a fractured facsimile of the man who had once been “Jorren Ollus”.

He almost wondered if the rest of him hadn’t died with Malak.

Breathing growing labored, Revan leaned against a wall, clawing at the mask on his face and tearing it off, gasping for breath. He almost threw it, but something stopped him, the half remembered whisper of another memory… A promise to never take the mask off as long as the Mandalorians still threatened the Galaxy.

But that was long over now.

Everything he’d worked for, all he had sacrificed, and it was over. The Mandalorians were a broken people without a leader, clans scattered to the winds, some desperate for a return to their glory days, others broken… Just like him. Shattered, disparate pieces, just like the Sith were now.

Everything he touched turned to ash.

The thought turned his stomach as he dropped his arm, releasing the helmet and listening to the sound of it hollowly hitting the floor. It rolled a distance and then settled, the only clear object in a blurry world, the only thing that made sense in the mire of his memories. Revan was the one thing he really wanted to let go of, but it was also the only thing he had to cling to.

Whoever he was before Revan was dead, as dead as Malak, scattered to the wind like his ashes.

Closing his eyes, he willed himself to wake, unable to force it until he felt a single strand of consciousness through the fog of sleep. It wasn’t his, but he clung to it anyway, a point of golden light in the darkness, slowly drawing him back to waking.

Gasping, he woke, arms immediately reaching out, wrapping around Bastila’s small body. She was small and warm against him, an anchor, and though for a single terrifying moment he feared she wouldn’t return his embrace, slowly she reached out and held him.

And finally he was safe.

He was home.

* * *

Mannan was like a blue gemstone in the void of space, one that dominated the view port of the Cruiser, peaceful scenery marred only by the two Sith Destroyers that cast deep shadows over its surface. One of them, of course, was an Interdictor… Something didn’t bode well for him and his small fleet, trapping them here, and he knew from experience that two Destroyers could do a damn lot to a Cruiser and its Frigates.

Not to mention that they still had allies out there in the Galaxy, and even if they didn’t they could easily bombard the entire surface of Mannan if they wanted to. It would be risky, of course, because of the Kolto supply, something that they couldn’t afford compromising. They needed it, for one reason or another, in peace time and in war time. The Sith having control of it was unacceptable and he couldn’t endanger it on the off chance that he could win a naval battle with them.

They were backed up against a wall so who was to say they wouldn’t do something desperate and stupid?

Desperate and stupid seemed to be the Sith way, after all.

“Bastila,” he said, pulling away from the console, “I need you with me. This…” He took a breath, motioning towards Mannan with a wave of his hand. “This requires the Jedi.”

She opened her mouth briefly before nodding, her blue eyes burning with curiosity waiting to be satiated, something he would do on the shuttle to the planet. It was Carth who decided that questioning his plan was a good idea, though maybe it was a bit preemptive; he certainly had no idea of the full scope of what Revan was planning, but… Well, it was his job to question things, Revan supposed.

“Wait,” Carth said. “Just the two of you? Are you insane? What are we supposed to do up here?”

Revan turned back around, grinning at Carth toothily. “Scramble the fighters but keep at distance. Don’t engage any more than you have to.”

Carth opened his mouth, then closed it again, “Right,” he said, turning back around. “Well, you heard the Commander. Get on it. I suspect you won’t see us for a bit.” A hand on his chest stopped Revan from protesting. “As romantic as I’m sure it would be for you two to slip off alone, there’s no way that I’m letting you leave without me.”

Bastila’s face turned a shade of red that somehow reminded Revan of a corrupted kyber crystal, even radiating heat the same way. “I kindly suggest you mind your own business, Admiral Onasi.”

Carth just snorted, pushing past them both as he shed the jacket of his station, tossing it at the face of one of his subordinates. “So you’re going to head to the surface and try to single-handedly take the planet back?”

Revan shook his head, watching carefully as they reached the personnel lockers by the bridge and Carth pulled out his old jacket, shoving his arms into the sleeves. It felt nostalgic, more than it should have for something that hadn’t technically happened that long ago, like he was back to being Cassus Jaylen again… Back to being the fabled jaybird with his clipped wings and false memories.

He wasn’t really sure if the feeling was a bad one or a good one.

“Revan?” Carth asked again.

“No,” he said, glancing towards Bastila, her face still ever so slightly pink. “There’s going to be a resistance force there. No one will accept occupation completely, and even if the Magistry signed the damn planet over willingly, which I doubt, it doesn’t mean that the citizens went silently into captivity. We contact the rebels, and then we destroy their on the ground leadership and communications relays. After that?”

“It’s a simple matter of forcing them to surrender. Without ground support, the fleet will only last so long,” Bastila said simply, finishing his thought. “It… Is admittedly a risky plan.”

He felt doubt stir inside of her, but the moment it rose she pushed it away, her eyes meeting Revan’s as she took a deep breath. “And it is not one I would have advocated for, once upon a time, but if knowing the two of you has taught me anything, it’s that one cannot always be a cautious leader.”

“I am being cautious,” Revan objected, “at least in one sense. I’d rather not lose all the people on the planet if the Sith decide revenge is the most important commodity.”

He took the lead, walking towards the elevators that would take them towards the docking bay, his mind swimming with possibilities, “This isn’t too different from Taris. I can’t trust forces that employ large scale orbital bombardments to do the sane or humane thing. Too many planets have been turned to ash because of things like this.”

“Serroco,” Carth said quietly, “Telos, and Taris.”

Revan nodded, and then hesitated, “And… Malachor V.”

He swallowed, inputting their destination into the elevator and leaning back against the wall to wait. Closing his eyes, he pictured the ruined atmosphere, Dreadnoughts and Star Cruisers alike sticking like spires from the crumbled earth. The call of the Dark Side was everywhere, singing from every corner of a world that had once been a lush and verdant jungle the likes of Yavin IV but now… Now it was nothing but a ruin, a wreck, just like everything he’d touched.

Forcing the tremble from his hands, he opened his eyes to find both Bastila and Carth starting at him, their expressions as blank as either of them could manage… Though that wasn’t very blank, for Bastila, and even if it had been he could feel her concern for him radiating from her like gamma rays from a star. Taking a breath, he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, looking away from them both to watch the numbers on the elevator change, slowly decreasing as they went ever downward.

“Listen, you don’t have to coddle me,” he said quietly to the both of them after a long moment. “I know that I’m responsible for a lot of these things. Telos and Malachor V? They’re both my fault in different ways. Hell, we wouldn’t even be in this situation now if I hadn’t done the things I did.”

He laughed humorlessly, trying to tell himself that it was okay, that he could come back from this and knowing that it was a kriffing lie.

“This? This starts to make up for that,” he motioned around them. “So let’s do this, let’s put the Sith to rest again, let them go back to sleep where they belong.”

“People change, Revan,” Carth said simply, turning his attention toward the doors as they slid open. “Don’t get so caught up in the past that you forget to live in the moment.”

His boots sounded against the metal floor of the ship, leaving Revan and Bastila alone in silence for a long moment. She looked at him over her shoulder, brows furrowed deeply over her blue eyes before she opened her mouth, closing it quickly again. He sensed she had something to say but didn’t know quite how to say it, that she was fumbling her words and the uncertainty of it all, before rage flashed inside of her like a lightning strike… Rage very much directed at him.

But she said nothing, instead turning around and walking out of the room, leaving him with the sense that the conversation wasn’t over… Not by a long shot.


	3. Chapter Three

The silence that spanned between the three of them as they commandeered a shuttle was deeply uncomfortable.

Revan knew that it was his fault, but for once he felt angry instead of guilty. Angry that Carth had for some reason decided to forsake the impossible standard to which he had once held Revan, and angry that Bastila no longer seemed to worry about whether or not he would trip and stumble off the path and careen back into the Dark Side.

It wasn’t fair of him to feel that way, of course.

He knew, on some level, that Carth was right and that people changed, that perhaps he had changed more than anyone.

But his mind still clung to some of Malak’s last words, that he was still quintessentially himself in spite of everything else he had been through. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the kernel of darkness still reflected in the yellow around his irises was so strong that it would one day completely consume him again and he would embrace the Darkness with open arms.

Revan, after all, had a penchant for extremism. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he always had, and he worried that forgiveness would make him soft where accountability and rejection had made him afraid—too afraid to stumble and Fall again.

Right now, he was still shaken from the dream.

The weight of the mask itself seemed to drag him down into the depths of uncertainty, something that he sorely couldn’t afford on the cusp of something that could potentially bring the Galaxy the peace it had so desperately wished for for so very long. All he could do right now was push it away and revisit it at a later date when he didn’t have to worry about the weight of an entire planet and the consequences of failure.

Approaching the dark shuttle, Revan pressed a button, the side rising, the sound of beeping betraying the arrival of a familiar droid.

“T3?” Revan asked, turning around to watch his companion wheel forward, HK-47 behind him, escorted by a pair of guards… One of them with a black eye. “Kriffing hell,” he muttered, his eyes immediately turning to the assassin droid, “what the hell did you do?”

“Explanation: The foolish little collection of parts insisted upon following you. We had been stowed away in the cargo hold for some time, Master, when we noticed comm chatter about your departure from the ship,” HK said calmly while T3 frantically whirred, beeped, and chattered about his refusal to be left behind on this adventure when he could help.

The contrast between the two of them was funny enough that they even earned a snort from Carth, who motioned for them to follow. “Come on, T3. We might need you to navigate through the chaos,” he sighed as the little droid chirped joyfully and HK deflated, eying Revan warily. “Think you can keep the other one in check?”

Revan stared at HK for a moment before reaching up to rub the back of his neck, pointing a single finger at the assassin droid. “No flame throwers. You kill when I say you kill.”

“Innocent Effusion: Of course, Master!”

For a moment, Revan and Bastila exchanged a wary glance before she remembered that she was angry at him and quickly glanced away. Stomach churning, Revan swallowed past the lump in his throat, focusing his mind on the present as he turned back to the shuttle, waving his hand. “Pile in, gang. We’ve got a coup to stage.”

He waited while his small party of four went in one at a time and then activated his commlink, listening to the small beep as the bridge picked up. “Are the fighters ready for deployment, Officer?”

There was a moment of static and then a small voice. “Yes, Commander. Would you like me to scramble?”

“Affirmative,” he said, nodding though he knew she couldn’t see him. “Call them back at 16:30 and not a moment later, then get out of range of the Destroyers and await orders from the planet. We’ll be contacting you as soon as possible.”

He could hear the hesitance over the layers of static, his heart twinging a moment later when another voice answered, this one older and worn with experience and understanding, “Understood, Commander. I’ll be sure these green things follow your exact orders. They’ve yet to learn how The Revanchist runs his missions.”

“They’ll learn,” he said, somehow keeping his voice from cracking, “May the Force be with you.”

Before he could receive another response and send his already unstable emotions into tumult, he cut the line and turned off the comm unit, certain that it could be used to track them somehow. Stepping into the shuttle, his mind briefly flashing to the gaping abyss in his memories, Revan motioned to T3 and Carth, who were already bickering quietly about the controls, shrill binary matching Carth’s smooth bass.

“You two got this under control?” he asked, reaching up to hold one of the bars across the ceiling to stabilize himself for takeoff as he punched the button to close the door with his fist, listening to the hiss it made as it magnetically sealed, “Or do I have to put one of you on time out?”

Carth’s head snapped back towards him, “No. We’ve got this. Plug into the navcomputer, T3. I’m going to need you scanning for debris and ships that I can’t detect through the viewport.”

The droid beeped his assent in a most military fashion before interfacing with the shuttle, the machine whirring to life as Carth took to the controls, strapping himself into the pilot’s seat. Around them, the lights of the interface sparkled above like a canopy of stars and galaxies, growing brighter as the interior lights dimmed and the repulrolifts pushed the shuttle into the air; useful for taking off or bringing a ship into port.

“Brace yourselves,” Carth said. “This isn’t going to be a smooth ride.”

Revan hadn’t expected it to be, not as the ship lurched forward out into space, through the shields and into the void. In the distance he could see enemy ships starting to swarm, their hulls the familiar bright silver of the Sith armor, glinting in the light of Mannan like the edge of a razor blade. Taking a breath, he felt his stomach rise momentarily into his throat as he was overtaken by the normal weightless feeling small craft travel always brought as their little shuttle and the Republic Fighters began their trek towards the planet.

Moments passed without fire, anticipation building in his gut with every passing second until it felt as taught as a cable suspended between two mountains, ready to fray and bust with any tension at all. Mannan looked less and less like a blue marble as they grew closer, the sheer size of the Destroyers casting shadows across its surface as the planet consumed their view, leaving only a sliver of the black void at the top of the viewport.

And then the world was consumed by plasma.

He was already familiar with the way space battles worked, calm snapping in a second as fighters sped through the depths, sending shots and bursts of bright energy at one another. Shields shimmered with impact, invisible bubbles and canopies glowing softly violet or magenta as bolts ricocheted from them or else were absorbed completely. The shuttle lurched in the conflict, ignored at first as it slipped through the chaos like a fish through water, not exactly aerodynamic but sleek in the vacuum, its dark colors making it vanish in the blackness.

Still the hull of the ship shuddered; Bastila’s face a sick green that reflected the roiling uncertainty in Revan’s stomach.

The shuttle had a poor carapace, and if it were to be torn open only the droids had any real chance of surviving for very long, assuming the pressure didn’t kill them first. Here in the blackness, there was a real risk. This small ship didn’t even offer the meager protection that a freighter like his Hawk would, didn’t even have the kinds of shields a fighter possessed, leaving them as vulnerable as a nexu cub if the Sith turned their powerful guns upon the shuttle.

Thankfully, they weren’t as blind as they were vulnerable.

T3’s sensors and Carth’s years of experience brought them ever closer to entering atmosphere, the details of Mannan’s watery surface coming into high definition detail the closer they crept. A mere fifteen minutes felt like a thousand years, dragging on, even as Revan’s eyes could make out entire reefs of coral, veritable metropolises of Mannan’s shallows, and Ahto City’s grey and white hexagonal shape, the sole port of the planet standing stark against its surface. Entire storm systems weaved their way across oceans whose bright blue turned into hues of blue, green, and grey, the shadows of clouds stretched across the vast ocean like the tips of greedy fingers.

A particularly violent aftershock as a Sith ship exploded sent the shuttlecraft lurching forward, Revan momentarily losing his footing, shoulder wrenched painfully as he held onto the beam just to stay standing. Across from him, Bastila let out a cry and HK let out a string of curses so profane that Revan was almost certain he had learned them from Alek.

It was over in a moment, the ship steadying as they experienced a new kind of turbulence, entering the upper layers of Mannan’s atmosphere.

Taking a breath, Revan closed his eyes, focusing past his physical pain to reach out with the Force, trying desperately to hide them from the Sith as the Republic fighters began their retreat per his own orders. They would be more vulnerable now, and though he hoped that most of them would ignore them to get back to their Destroyer for repairs, he knew better than to underestimate the fanaticism of the Sith, cornered as they were, the last desperate tongues of a quickly dying flame.

No emotion—peace.

No passion—serenity.

He let the Living Force take him, the Unifying Force guiding his thoughts and actions as a blanket of calm settled over them. Vaguely he was aware of the sounds the shuttle was making, of Carth’s heavy breathing, the creak of leather gloves against the controls, of the way Bastila rocked back and forth to try to calm herself, and the sound of the Droid’s servos whirring softly. There were other sounds, too—explosions now that they’d broken into atmo, and the distant sound of waves as gravity finally took its full effect.

And it was fine, for several moments.

The Sith didn’t notice them slipping through the hole in their defenses like a needle through cloth. Revan could feel the life of the planet bloom beneath him, bursting in the back of his mind, all the hope and pain and vivacity and calamity and vibrancy of the living world singing in colors all around them. He stood at the precipice, balanced on the knife’s edge of Light and Dark, perfectly at peace as he seldom was, until his serenity was eclipsed by waves of fear crashing against his psyche.

Fear not his own.

Eyes jamming open, Revan’s attention immediately snapped to Bastila, who was staring wide-eyed out the viewport. It didn’t take him long to notice why as the shadow of an Interdictor crossed them, an Interdictor not unlike the flagship Leviathan, the steel beast that had chewed Cassus Jaylen up and spit out Revan’s remains, consuming Bastila completely in the process.

Without really thinking he reached out to her, seeking to comfort her, hand releasing the stabilizing bar above him.

It was a mistake he would later regret.

“Krayt piss!” Carth hissed through his teeth, the last thing Revan heard before there was a loud blast that made his ears ring, heat tearing into his right side like the teeth of a rancor and forcing a shout of pain from his lips.

He stumbled forward, feeling the ship bottom out beneath him, vaguely aware of the ocean growing dangerously close at an alarming rate as they careened towards the surface. Before long, the blue would consume them completely and they would surely all die, Revan thought in the suspended moments before impact.

At least it would be quick.

Those were the last thoughts he had before he completely lost his footing, his head smacking the wall on the opposite side of the shuttle, Bastila’s wide, blue eyes heralding him into a world of darkness that might very well precede his watery grave.

* * *

He was cold.

Cold and wet.

But at the very least, nothing really hurt anymore.

Flexing his hands, Revan found that they moved slowly, impeded by something too thick to be water, awareness tingling at the back of his mind. Memories... Memories of different times, suspended in Kolto, green life seeping into wounds to knit them shut in a way no other substance could possibly manage. Reaching up, his fingers brushed against the mask strapped to his face, greeted with the slickness of total submersion.

Yes, he was definitely in a Kolto tank, but how had he gotten here?

Refusing to open his eyes, he reached out to touch the front of the tank only to find it already draining, the harnesses that suspended him lengthening and then slackening as he was set on the ground. Limbs shaking, he sat on the bottom of the tank for a moment before opening his eyes, fumbling with the rebreather as the transparisteel slowly raised, transforming the world from murky and echoing to clear and sharp.

The bulky mask fell to the ground as he took his first gulps of real air in who knew how long, shivering and half naked, hair on his arms standing on end as the well-ventilated room sent chills down his spine. Reaching up, he rubbed the back of his neck, his mind struggling to come into focus enough to process the shapes and faces around him. He could hear voices, echoing vaguely around the room, some very clearly in Common, others in the guttural language of the Selkath, hissing and clicking like water bubbling up from a crack in pavement.

It wasn’t until a pair of strong, clammy hands lifted him up that Revan realized they must have made it to the surface after all.

“Commander Revan?” a Selkath voice asked from his direct left. “Can you hear me?”

He opened his mouth and slowly, surely, words came out, slurred as they may be. “I feel like I got eaten by a Firaxan Shark and spat back up.”

“Oh, it’s him alright,” said Carth’s familiar voice from somewhere in the large room. “He’s definitely going to make a full recovery, with that attitude. I’d only worry if he were actually being serious.”

Raising his head, Revan searched the room, finding Carth sitting on a table, one of his arms covered in Kolto patches and cradled in a sling. He was wearing something that looked like the old remains of a scientist’s uniform, one that looked vaguely familiar to Revan, and was otherwise too clean to be the survivor of a violent shuttle crash.

A wave of relief washed over him at seeing his friend, followed by a deep sense of guilt as his eyes began to frantically search the room for any sign of Bastila or the Droids, feeling sick when he found neither.

“Relax,” Carth said, as if reading his mind. “Bastila, T3, and your living trash compactor are resting in the barracks. They had only minor injuries.”

Revan was carefully lowered onto a bed where he sat, feeling very much like he was made of rubber. He still shook, unstable, but at least less cold when the large Selkath who had been supporting him draped a heavy blanket over his shoulders, made of the sort of material meant to keep warm in particularly cold and desolate places. He took a breath, closing his eyes, letting the news sink in and relief wash over him.

“Kriffing hell,” he muttered after a quiet moment. “We could have died.”

“You almost did. It was all Bastila could do to keep you afloat on a piece of drift, honestly,” Carth said. “You were bleeding from the head, half burned, and at a risk of drowning. It was only by sheer chance that the Selkath Rebels found us.”

“We keep a grid of ships entering and exiting the atmosphere,” the Selkath doctor said, prodding at the tender skin of Revan’s shoulder, prompting a hiss from him. “Our scanners are constantly aimed towards the heavens, and you were advantageously close to our base. The Leader Sahsa immediately ordered your rescue.”

“Sahsa?” Revan asked, looking up into the mottled grey and green face of his physician. “The Force Sensitive Selkath from the Sith base?”

“So you remember her,” the Selkath said softly, reaching for a Kolto patch. “Your skin requires further reconstruction. You are fortunate the damage is not more extensive, Commander Revan.”

“What can I say?” he muttered, his brow knitting in deep thought, “The Force was with me.”

The Selkath gave him a long look that Revan could not read and applied the patches before she finally drew away. “I’m going to go fetch Leader Sahsa. She wanted to see you and explain the situation.” The Selkath woman hesitated a minute, seeming to waver between stepping away and speaking, eventually settling on the latter. “We didn’t expect you to be the Commander. Sahsa remembers you only as a smuggler, but we’re all relieved to know the legend so vibrant even Mannan has heard of him has come to our rescue.”

The words stilled Revan’s thoughts momentarily, and he drew the blanket more tightly about himself, reaching up to push a dark strand of hair away from his eyes. Without another word she walked away, leaving the two of them sitting alone in the large medical bay, the sound of the ventilation system humming and groaning around them, making the Rebel base vibrant. The entire place felt familiar somehow, like something out of a dream, one he wasn’t sure he’d ever really woken up from.

“This makes it what?” Carth asked suddenly, breaking the silence. “Three near-death experiences for you?”

Revan laughed, the sound echoing through the room, thin lips pulling upwards into a lopsided smile. “At least. There’s probably more that I can’t remember, you know. It’s like that when your memories slip through your brain like it’s a sieve.”

“You apparently remember enough to get us onto the planet,” Carth said. “Which is impressive, all things considered. I’ve made some daring escapes, but I don’t think I’ve ever made any daring entrances,” the man smiled a bit ruefully. “Not like you have, anyway.”

Carth paused, hesitating, reaching up to run a hand over his stubbled face. In the bright, artificial light of the medical bay the dark circles underneath his eyes stood out, dark and stark, causing Revan to wonder how long he’d been out, and how long they’d all been worried he wouldn’t wake up. With a soft pang in his chest, his throat growing tight, Revan realized that his death wouldn’t make up for any of the damage he had wrought and that it wouldn’t make anyone feel better.

Too much time had passed, and even if he was still Revan, he wasn’t the Revan who had conquered the Galaxy any longer.

No more than he was the Revan who had saved the Republic from the Mandalorians.

He felt like another man’s leftovers.

“Eh,” he finally said, shrugging. “It’s not that impressive.”

Carth looked at him and sighed heavily, staring down at the scuffed toes of his military issue boots, the only article of clothing that had apparently survived their watery fate. “She sees you the way you are, you know. All the bullshit you put up, the smiles no one else is brave enough to call you on, the way you hide behind that sense of humor of yours; and the more you run away and pretend that you’re not affected by this, the more of a wedge you’re driving between the two of you.”

The words were… heavy, heavy like a soaked shroud hung over his shoulders, like so much responsibility heaped onto his shoulders. It stuck in his throat like humid mists rising through the trees of Yavin IV, lodging in his chest and staying there like a stone, where it stayed as long as he stared at Carth. “Bullshit and smiles, Carth?” he asked, still grinning. “Come on, do I look like a dishonest man?”

“Cut the crap, Revan,” came the curt response.

Swallowing past the lump, Revan reached up to rub the back of his neck, twining his hands in his own hair as he stared at the tiles without really seeing them. “Maybe I’m driving the wedge on purpose, Carth. Maybe I’m doing it because it’s what she wants me to do, even if she’d never admit it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Carth demanded. “Have you seen the way she looks at you, Revan? She’s helplessly in love with y—”

“I know,” Revan said, cutting Carth off, unable to keep the emotion from his voice, anger causing it to shake. “I know what she feels. I always know what she feels, Carth. Sometimes even before she does. We’re in each other’s heads, always. We can’t escape from it, not even in sleep.”

He dropped his hand back to his lap, staring at it, fighting against the sensation of burning behind his eyes. Battling with himself for a moment, he grit his teeth and staved off his sorrow, taking a deep breath before he found his voice again, looking up into Carth’s face, boring into him with his eyes. “She’s chosen the Jedi Order, Carth. She feels she needs them to heal, and it’s exactly because I love her just as much that I don’t let her know how much it’s hurting me. Love is selfless, not self-obsessed. I can’t force her to see things my way.”

“Have you talked to her about it?” Carth prompted gently after a moment, his expression filled with soft sympathy that made Revan more grateful for him than he could possibly express.

Revan blinked at him, opening his mouth to respond just as the doors opened, leaving them in the presence of a very familiar pair of Selkath… Sahsa’s once worry-worn father, and the young Force Sensitive, who walked towards him with a spring in her step. Stopping just short of him, she offered him a bow and then pulled a package from her side—a package that Revan could tell contained clothing.

“Welcome to the Selkath Rebellion, Commander Revan,” she said. “Please accept this offering and then meet my companions and I for dinner. I think we both agree that we have a lot to discuss.”

Reaching out a single hand, Revan took the package, clasping it to his chest…

And just like that, offered her a smile, like nothing had transpired in the moments before her entrance. “I would be delighted to, Leader Sahsa. I think we can offer each other a lot in this trying time.”

After all, Revan thought as she gave him the specifications of their meeting, sometimes you just had to leave the drama in the past and live in the moment.

* * *

Life went on.

The days in the underwater base passed without incident as Revan recovered, learning more and more about the Sith Occupation and about the wily Selkath rebellion. A rebellion, he had discovered, that was lead by the Force Sensitives he and his companions had rescued from the Sith the last time they were here, leading and guarding those refugees from Ahto City above that they could manage to take in.

It was funny how much he’d managed to influence these people, in spite of everything else he had done.

Whatever seed he’d planted in those kids’ hearts had lead them to stand up against tyranny and lead the refugees and outcasts to the very place Revan himself had shut down not so long ago. It was good that the Republic’s folly could birth something so noble, that its mistakes could provide a base hidden from the Sith, a shelter through the storm of their occupation.

It was a reminder to him that people’s mistakes could ultimately have positive consequences, in the long run.

And that maybe, just maybe, he was the positive consequence of Malak’s mistakes.

Watching the ocean currents and wildlife from inside the base, Revan leaned against a wall, sunlight casting dappled patterns on his face through the waves. Deeper into the Hakkeret Rift the light disappeared completely, swallowed by the blackness where the Great Shark dwelt, set to peace after the Kolto mining operation was silenced. Just barely, he could see the Star Map apparatus and pressed his hand to the transparisteel, imagining the stars that bloomed into sight the moment it was activated… Not that it had a purpose any longer.

The last vestige of the Rakkattan Empire had been turned into so much debris, and the sun-eating space station had finally met the same ending as the people that had built it. Like everything about the Infinite Empire, its Engine was now nothing more than the shattered pieces and broken memories of a bygone era.

“You look pensive.”

Revan didn’t turn his head, instead taking in Bastila’s presence, his hand still pressed against the transparisteel’s cool surface. She was calm and willing to talk, something she hadn’t been in a long time. In truth, she’d been ignoring him since they’d arrived here, spending all her time with the Force Sensitive young Selkath, trying to direct them in the use of their abilities as best as she could given the lack of facilities here.

He’d been aware of her hesitance, of her anger, and of her deep sense of relief. She was happy he was okay, but his words about atonement still bothered her, leaving her unable to speak to him. It was fine, of course, he told himself. Revan knew she would come around eventually, that she would talk to him on her own time when she’d come to whatever conclusion she was going to come to, though given the circumstances he couldn’t help but wonder if Carth had mentioned something to her.

“There’s a lot to think about,” he said at last, breathing out a soft sigh. “Somewhere up there, the Sith are looking for the rebellion, and I can’t help but wonder how long it is until they find us.”

Her footsteps echoed against the metal tiles, bringing her to his side, pale face illuminated by the blue glow of the water and making her look otherworldly, like a Force apparition. Clearing his throat, he looked away, watching as a school of iridescent orange fish darted past the window, one of the large finned Firaxxan sharks in rapid pursuit, silvery-blue fins cutting through the water like a ship through the depths of the vacuum.

“I believe I owe you an apology,” Bastila said, crossing her arms over her chest, looking supremely uncomfortable and small. “I dislike hearing you talk about yourself in such negative terms. It’s ironic, considering that I was once harder on you than anybody else, but you’ve proved yourself an admirable man and you did not deserve what happened to you.”

Revan choked back a snort, the sound coming out strangled, leaving Bastila to stare at him in clear confusion.

Shaking his head, Revan exhaled heavily, closing his eyes as he searched for the words. “I… Was a monster. I might still be one if my mind hadn’t been scrambled like someone’s private signal. There’s no promise I would have come back to the Light.”

“You would have,” Bastila said with confidence. “You were a poor Sith, the man who cared too much to murder his own Apprentice for misdeeds. You could have been persuaded. I… The Jedi Council…” She swallowed, her voice losing some of its power, turning small and uncertain. “I allowed them to use me to take advantage of your vulnerability. I am just as much at fault as they are.”

“Bantha shit, Bastila,” Revan said, his fingers twitching as his gloved hand slid against the smooth surface of the wall. “You did what you were trained to do and made a selfless sacrifice. I know how terrified of me you were, and honestly? I can’t blame you. What you did was above and beyond what anyone could have expected you to do, except for the kriffing Jedi and their… Their stupid, impossible purity standards.”

He could hear her jaw snap shut, feel her irritation radiate, but it vanished as quickly as it had burst into existence. Instead she moved closer, so close that he could feel the body heat radiating from her, her presence a stubborn one, one determined to have a productive conversation in the wake of everything that had happened since the Star Forge.

“You don’t approve of my decision to stay with the Order,” she said after a moment, speaking in a voice that left no room for debate.

“No,” he said, the word little more than an exhalation of breath, “I don’t.”

There was a moment of hesitance before Bastila reached out, placing her small hand against his arm, the touch enough to draw his gaze. For a moment they simply stared at one another, Bastila’s face soft and beautiful, so beautiful that he wanted to reach out and hold her in his arms, the longing in his chest too much to bear for long.

Stricken, her hand dropped back to her side, leaving her feeling uncertain.

Looking away, he swallowed thickly, waiting for her to speak, letting her feel the full intensity of his emotions.

He wanted her to know how he felt, for once, to not hold anything back and to have her feel what he felt every time she pulled away.

“I realized that I was in love with you the moment you walked out that door and into the depths and I wasn’t certain that I would ever see you again,” she said quietly. “And truth be told, it terrified me. Loving you was a violation of every single vow I had ever taken. I am a Jedi, Revan, and Jedi... Jedi don’t feel attachment. I… I’ve come to terms with it since then.”

He watched her flex her fingers slowly, staring at her open palm as if she didn’t quite understand what she was supposed to do. And honestly? He could understand.

She was walking a line between what she wanted, what was right, and what she had been told her entire life.

He didn’t remember being the Revanchist, but he could still feel the aching in his chest as images flashed through his mind. Young Jorren Ollus, struggling as he huddled in a transporter vessel, sitting in silence as he contemplated defying the Jedi Order for love of the people he was supposed to serve out of duty and not out of affection. Love came in many forms, be it romantic or otherwise, and it made him wonder if the Order could ever truly be a place for someone like him, or…

Or someone like Bastila, as much as she might not want to admit it.

“I love you, but I want to stay with the Order, and the Code forbids our relationship,” she said. “I’m still not certain how to reconcile the two sides of myself. I simply ask for time from you, Revan, for your patience while I figure out what the Force wants me to do.”

She was sincere, so heartbreakingly sincere, that he dropped his hand back to his side and exhaled, nodding slowly. All the resentment he felt, all the hurt, drained out of him in that moment, leaving him feeling empty, tired, and guilty. He didn’t want to be angry with her, and he suspected she felt the same.

At the end of the night, it was just too much effort, because really, weren’t they both stuck between this wall and the Jedi Order?

“Okay,” he said softly, nodding. “I’ll give you time, Bastila. All the time you need.”

She smiled at him, staring at him for only a moment longer before she turned away, hesitating only briefly to look over her shoulder before leaving him to his thoughts once more. Revan listened to her footsteps recede, staring out into the ocean depths, his chest beating painfully in his chest.

It was a fair request, but as tears streamed down his face he couldn’t help but think that he had already been waiting an eternity.

The Jedi ruined everything, but if he had to let her go, he would.

He just didn’t know who he would be after he did.


	4. Chapter Four

Ahto City was quiet even in the heat of the evening, eerily absent of anyone but a few Selkath going about their business with careful paranoia in their every movement and the chrome armor of the Sith, glinting like a beacon in the sunlight. Revan, from his perch on top of one of the buildings, scanned the West Plaza with his macrobinoculars, counting the type and number of the troops that he could easily see.

His cloak billowed in the salt-sea air, flapping in a breeze blowing in from the west, though he wasn’t expecting anyone to see him. The Sith were a largely incompetent, scattered mess, and they were only managing to hold down the city by keeping the Kolto supply under constant threat; cowardly, of course, but effective. They wouldn’t think to look up, and even if they did, Revan would duck and blend in, grey cloak letting him melt into his surroundings.

Reaching up, Revan activated his commlink, turning his eyes to the Communications Tower in the distance. They weren’t really monitoring most private frequencies right now, though Sahsa assured him that they had been up until a few days ago, likely when the Republic had arrived and they’d started looking outward. With T3 scrambling the frequencies for extra protection, Revan felt relatively safe, blanketed by the carelessness of his former army, though he was still being reasonably careful.

“Orange Guppy, this is Red Shark—” he began, the line suddenly filled with raspy laughter as the Selkath stationed with Carth back at the base heard his greeting.

“Shut up, Revan,” came Carth’s voice, snapping back at him, laughter continuing in the background.

“Well, if you don’t want these troop movements…”

“No, I do,” Carth said, sighing heavily in resignation. “What do our Ground Eyes see?”

Dropping the joke, Revan stood up, keeping two fingers on the comm as he tucked his macrobinoculars back into his belt pouch. With a breath he took off into an effortless dash across the top of one of the buildings, leaping across a gap and landing safely on another building, resolved in his decision to head towards the rendezvous point.

“Not much,” he replied. “Frankly, it seems like they’re only holding the city because the citizens don’t know what to do without their infrastructure. My guess would be that the captive government is acting the way they are because they’re having their Kolto held hostage, and since that’s the basis of the entire economy…” He sighed. “From what I’ve seen, they’re keeping people in their houses by patrolling the residential district, but the bulk of their forces are stationed in the government building and the communications tower.”

“I have noticed the same,” came Sahsa’s garbled response from another frequency. “They are attempting to maintain control with an iron fist. It is the Sith way. They did the same to us acolytes when their honeyed words failed to sway us any longer.”

“That does fit the Sith profile,” Revan agreed, freezing in place as a patrolling droid whizzed past him, making soft beeps and hisses, its metal carapace turned pink by the coming sunset.“Thankfully, their consistency means that sneezing will take out their operation if we sneeze in the right place.”

“So then, where’s the right place to sneeze?” Carth asked as the probe’s eye turned slowly, surely, towards Revan.

For a moment, it seemed that it was frozen in place, as if its logic circuits did not truly expect to see anything standing on top of the building. The droid was a thinking machine, so it was probably used to flying fish or the occasional gassy beast floating by on an air current without a care in the entire Galaxy, not tall, lanky men with dark eyes and wide grins.

“I’m going to have to get back to you on that,” Revan said calmly, feeling the tension rise on all sides of their little communication line.

“Revan—” Carth began, though Revan quickly cut him off.

“It’s just some company, Admiral, relax. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

Slowly, he dropped his hand to his side, staring at the probe’s eye with a calm expression on his face, wondering how long it had been since it’d had a memory wipe… And wondering how he could use this to his advantage. Reaching out, he took a deep breath, glancing from side to side, though he didn’t dare move forward; not yet.

“You know,” he began conversationally, “it’s really unfortunate that you showed up here.”

The droid, as if finally realizing what was happening, gave him an indignant, shrill chirp, its large eye narrowing to a red slit.

“Yeah, I know. I’m not supposed to be here. I get that. But let me ask you a question, my friend,” he continued, slowly, carefully shrugging off his cloak now that the eye was focused solely on his face.

Another indignant nose, though this time there was a note of curiosity, one that brought a smile to Revan’s lips.

“When do criminals ever follow the law?”

Before the droid could process anything else, Revan tossed the cloak away, watching it land neatly atop the small sphere, though he spared no more time waiting after that. Listening to its screeches of rage, he launched himself over the droid and onto the other roof, rolling to his feet and breaking into a sprint. He only had so long to get out of sight before it found him, and though he knew where he was…

Well, he would have to take a different path to get where he wanted to go if he wanted to avoid being spotted.

They’d have his face no matter what, but even if they could figure out who he was—which was a big if, because he’d never shown his face to anyone he didn’t trust—they’d have no idea where he had gone. The Sith would just assume he was working with their enemies, and in that case they might focus all their attention on finding him instead of on the Republic ships hovering somewhere just beyond their sensors and out of their range.

Dropping into an alleyway, Revan glanced in both directions before turning his attention to a manhole cover. He grimaced, not pleased at the prospect of traveling through the sewage, but honestly, he doubted the Sith had considered it. They certainly hadn’t on Taris, or anywhere else. Taking a breath, he reached out and lifted the heavy cover into the air with the Force, holding his breath as he dropped into the darkness, settling the large disc of metal back in place.

Reaching up, Revan switched his comm back on. “Sorry about that. I believe we were discussing sneezing?”  

“Kriffing hell, Revan,” came Carth’s voice from the other side, a distinct note of relief coloring his exasperation. “What happened? Did you get caught?”

“I wouldn’t be talking to you if I did,” he said, looking around as he pictured the city above in his mind’s eye, setting off towards the rendezvous point once more. “It was just a droid. It got a picture of me, but I shook it before it could get much else. Now, are you going to ask my professional opinion, or do I have to force it on everyone listening?”

“We’re listening,” Bastila’s voice said, reminding him for the first time that she was listening to this conversation, making him suddenly lament the fact that he would soon smell like sewage. “I’m certain you must already have a plan.”

“Uh… yeah,” he said, shrugging. “It’s pretty simple. Liberating the government isn’t going to do us any good, as much as it pains me to say it. It will just lock us here on the ground and turn this whole thing into a war of attrition where we just fight over different parts of the city until the losing side has so few resources that it has to surrender. That puts everyone living in the city right now at risk, and victimizes most of the population.”

“Then your plan is to attack the tower?” Sahsa asked. “It is doubtful we can hold it long.”

“We only need to hold it long enough to get a message to my fleet.” He paused, looking around before taking a sharp left. “After all, the Sith have my face now, so they’re going to be focusing on me. It may make capturing the place a bit more difficult, but it’s a stroke of luck, really, because as long as they’re doing that, they won’t dare bomb the planet. Besides…” Revan trailed off, staring up at one of the manhole covers, certain he was in the right place.

Slowly he lifted, setting it off to the side, and sure enough, he heard the telltale gasps of Bastila and a handful of Selkath as he jumped up onto the surface.

“We have a secret weapon,” he said, staring squarely at Bastila, who looked back at him with wide eyes suddenly full of understanding.

“My battle meditation,” Bastila said for the benefit of their audience. “I can give our troops an advantage in battle… though it requires a great deal of concentration.”

“I’ve got your back,” Revan smiled at her, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, turning his gaze to Sahsa. “So, Leader, what’s the timing on the attack?”

“Tomorrow night,” she said confidently, practically glowing as she looked down into his face. “For now, we return to base.”

Revan nodded, grateful for the brief reprieve, this calm before the storm, which would at least provide him a chance for a shower.

* * *

“You’re letting your emotions get the better of you,” Revan said, sensing the young woman’s frustration as she held up her hands, attempting to block another of the small bags he’d filled with sand. “If you keep this up, you’re going to end up rupturing the fabric and getting sand over the nice, clean floor that the droids just mopped.”

“If you would toss them more slowly—!” Sahsa objected, as he tossed another of the sandbags at her, watching it bounce harmlessly off her arm and hit the ground with a soft thud.

“Blaster bolts go way more quickly than I can possibly throw them at you, Sahs,” he said, clicking his tongue. “This is about the principle of the thing, about being able to block instinctively so you don’t have to learn on something lethal.”

She glowered at him, gills flaring as her eyes narrowed, a few of her sharp teeth peering out from behind her lips. It was a threat display, one he clearly recognized from… wherever the hell he had learned about Selkath anatomy, but it didn’t really bother him. He figured at this point it was just an outward manifestation of the hell she’d endured with the Sith.

“Breathe,” Revan said, softening his voice, “and then tell me what’s wrong.”

He watched shock ripple through her frame like she was a puddle and his words were a stone. For a moment she remained perfectly rigid, before she cast her gaze elsewhere, seeming uncertain what to say, or perhaps even if she wanted to say anything in the first place. Revan watched her for only a moment longer, going to pick up his small sandbags before sitting down against the wall, idly making four of them orbit the fifth as he waited for something in the room to shift.

And shift it did, Sahsa’s blurry shape slowly sinking to the floor, her limbs suddenly more fluid than they’d been during training as the tension vanished from her body. Even the air felt less static with her emotions, the electricity she was generating replaced by a dampening blanket of nothing, the claiming sort of nothing that shut him securely in his own mind as her teacher.

The only teacher she had, if she didn’t want to submit herself to Jedi training.

“I lead the people here,” she began, her voice quiet, wavering with her abyssal well of emotion. “They’re all relying on me, Commander. I’m afraid of failing them when they have come to see me as a symbol that we might yet maintain our independence from Jedi or Sith. In truth, some were reluctant to even accept your help.”

The words made sense, and though he hadn’t known for sure what had weighed so heavily on her mind, he could feel the truth of them reverberate between them. Slowly letting the sandbags float back to the ground, Revan focused his eyes on her, noting the way she refused to make eye contact with him, as though she were responsible for the opinions of every number among her rank who had doubted him.

“I’m Revan,” he said to her. “None of you knew that when I came here and went to the Rift. All you knew is that I was a charming rogue with a heart of gold and that I was willing to put myself on the line and risk everything for other people, but I’m Revan.”

He held up a single, gloved hand to silence the objections he could see bubbling inside of her, casting her a soft smile as she finally met his gaze.

“And it’s because I’m Revan that I know exactly what you’re talking about,” he confessed, dropping his hand into his lap where he stared at the lines in the leather, drawing upon some half-formed shadow memory, the echo of a whisper drenched in the color red. “People rely on you because you’re the sort who can’t let well enough alone. When I first came here I saw how the others in your training group looked to you for leadership and guidance, and if I may offer some advice?”

There was a moment of silence in which the sound of the lights humming over head filled Revan’s ears, as if the base itself was attempting to drown out her answer. It felt tense, like at any moment the pipes in this facility would burst, flooding it with water and sending them all to a watery grave, the sort of pause with an air of fatal importance about it.

“Yes, Commander,” she said at last, and he could breathe again.

“Rely on them, too,” he said simply. “The more you let yourself be eaten up by the title Leader, the less of the real you you’ll have to give, until you’re nothing but a mask wearing a person’s face.”

“Is…” Sahsa began, her voice cracking, like water spilling from a glass. “Is that what happened to you?”

Revan looked at her, reaching up to trace the lines of his face, remembering the dream he’d had not so long ago. It almost felt like it should still be there, heavy and hollow, and warm to the touch, warmed from the core by his breath and sweat. A shiver traveled down his spine, and he tore his eyes away from Sahsa, swallowing past the sudden lump that had formed in his throat.

“Yeah,” he said, hating the way his own voice wavered, “yeah, Sahs, it is.”

He took a deep breath, exhaling the emotion from his lungs as he raised his head to look at her again. “Which is why I want you to reach out to the other students. They went through the same things you did, so you don’t have to be alone with your pain. You have others who can help you work through it.”

“And what about you?” she asked, catching him off-guard, his eyes going wide as he froze firmly in place. “Do you have anyone to talk to?”

It was… the earnest sort of question only someone naive could really ask. In spite of all she had seen, all she had been through, she still maintained something of who she had been before all of this shit had happened and that… That gave him hope. If not for himself, at least that someday things could get better, that the future was in the hands of people who could heal the way he was quickly realizing he would never be able to.

“Nah,” he said with a shrug. “Not the way I want to be able to, at least, but the important thing is that you do. You don’t have to be a proper Jedi or a Sith and don’t have to make my mistakes. Just…” Revan reached up and rubbed the back of his neck again, his thoughts lingering on Bastila, the only other person who might understand what it was like, even though she felt one thousand light years away right now.

“Just… Make sure you don’t suppress your emotions, either by pretending you’re okay or taking them out on other people. And if you do mess up—and you will—just remember that you can always make amends. Change is a choice, Sahs. You don’t have to be what the Sith tried to make you be, and you don’t have to be like the Jedi, either.”

Sahsa stared at him for a moment before nodding and standing up, motioning with a wave of her arms towards the sandbags on the floor. “Come on, Commander,” she said. “I think that perhaps we both need to do something productive.”

Taking only one more breath, Revan willfully erased the frown on his face with a wide smile, reaching down to scoop one of the bags up into his hand. Tossing it in the air a few times, he watched it rise and fall, feeling the momentum shift and knowing that his part-time-pupil had worked out something within herself, something that would give her the resolve to work past the frustration and channel it into productivity.

He would just have to do the same himself, or suffer the consequences during tomorrow’s mission.

“Well,” Revan said, tossing the bag to himself one more time, “you asked for it Sahs, just don’t come complaining to me later if you end up a bit sore.”

For now, he would just revel in the distraction and trust in the Force.

At the end of the day, that was all he could do anyway.

* * *

It felt right, the humming of his sabers in his hand as he stared down a man in Sith Trooper armor, violet and white light reflecting from the breastplate and helmet. Revan could see him trembling as a rumor brought to life stalked him and his small patrol through the streets, a distraction that would let Sahsa’s and Carth’s teams slip towards the communications tower with little fanfare.

Beside him Bastila stood, the sliver of orange around her iris all the more apparent when her pupils dilated, glaring up at the motionless trooper like she had plans to eat him. She looked wild, strands of errant hair coming loose from her usually perfectly restrained coiffure, knuckles gripping her saberstaff so tightly that they had turned white.

“So,” Revan said conversationally, taking a step forward, taking a strange sort of pleasure in watching the man flinch, “are you going to let us through or are you going to join the pile of corpses behind us?”

The man dropped his blaster rifle, the black gun clanking loudly against the metal of the walkway, the grounding rubber soles of his boots tapping furiously as he backpedaled towards the wall where he shrunk away from them, understandably cowering. Kicking the rifle away, Revan walked past him, sabers still extended, Bastila a half step behind him.

“Smart man,” he said, sparing a glance over his shoulder before turning his attention fully towards the tower looming over them both.

In the distance he could hear the sounds of shouts and gunfire, punctuated occasionally by the mechanical screams of droids or HK’s distinctive laughter. Smoke rose from the base of the tower in the east, the direction of the thoroughfare, where Carth’s main force had directed their attention, and from the west, where Sahsa took the back door.

As for he and Bastila?

Well…

“Are you certain that we have the correct map?” Bastila asked as they approached one of the many outlying maintenance sheds.

“Positive,” he replied, his eyes settling on a bright blue strip of color above one of the doors, motioning towards it with his finger. “The ventilation shafts, like the roots of a massive tree.”

Her eyes followed his hand, eyebrows arching, sighing in resignation as she stalked towards the building. “I had hoped we would get out of this.”

Revan shrugged and followed her, turning his attention briefly towards the keypad, then back towards the door. Dropping his deactivated sabers back to his side, he spent a few short moments with the device before the door opened with a release of cool air, making him a bit sorry he’d thrown his good cloak over a droid.

Something told him he’d lost more cloaks that way.

Glancing towards Bastila, Revan grinned and motioned towards the door. “Ladies first,” he said with a slight flourish, enjoying the way she glowered at him before huffing and walking away, her footfalls an angry staccato.

Just like old times.

The moment he stepped into the building he dropped all pretense, following her into the large ventilation maintenance shaft where they walked in silence, both of them focused on the mission. For once, his mind didn’t wander towards other things, even as she wrenched a metal grate open with the Force and he had to help boost her into the wide crawl space. Right now, there was only the moment and only the Force, guiding them surely but slowly towards their destination—the control room at the top of the tower.

Their silence persisted, flesh and cloth against metal, jumping and twisting through the passages for what seemed like an eternity. Sometimes they would hear the sounds of gun fire through the walls, making Revan wonder how many casualties there would be by the time he could make his broadcast. It was something he would worry about later though, when all was said and done and they would have time to count the bodies and figure out their final rights.

In this moment, they were finally reaching their destination, listening to the sounds of angry voices from their location in the ceiling.

“—This has to be the Dark Lord,” a voice snapped, garbled by a modulator in the helmet. “He’s come back from the dead to seek vengeance for our betrayal.”

“Don’t be stupid,” a woman replied, though her voice wavered with uncertainty, filling Revan with ideas that curled his lips into a slow grin. “It’s paranoia, and that’s all it is. Men don’t come back from the dead.”

Across from him, Bastila’s eyes shone with understanding, and perhaps a bit of approval. Nodding, she motioned downward, and then slowly, surely, began to silently open the grate as Revan moved into a crouch, getting ready to make his move. Closing his eyes, he listened to the sounds around him—Bastila’s breathing, the slow sound of screws lifting from their places,  the distant sound of blaster fire nearly lost beneath the bickering voices.

The specifics of what they were saying was lost on him, but he didn’t need to know.

The moment he heard the grate begin to swing Revan slid from the vents above, igniting his sabers as he entered his fall, landing gracefully on the ground in the middle of a small circle of soldiers, lead by a pale blonde woman in an officer’s suit. He turned his face towards her, grinning his most dangerous grin, showing as many teeth as he possibly could before laughing, long and deep, watching as a few of her subordinates cringed away from him.

“What’s this about revenge?” he asked casually, motioning toward her with the tip of his saber. “I’m afraid I’m a bit behind in the conversation, you see…”

All at once, he had multiple guns trained at him, the woman’s eyes wide with fear but full of fury nonetheless.

Not that Revan was really surprised.

He took a step toward her, watching as she raised her hand, listening to the sound of a half dozen safeties switching off, drawing another laugh from his lips—though this one turned cold. “I dare you,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I truly dare you. You know who I am, and so you must know what I can do to you. So please,” he waved imperiously with his other hand, “be my guest, but it’s your funeral.”

“Lord… Lord Revan,” she breathed, the reality of her situation finally dawning on her. “You’re back I… I… This entire thing… It must be your doing… The droid wasn’t… It wasn’t mistaken.”

“Of course not,” he told her with a small shrug. “Now, are you going to call off your men and surrender, or are we going to have a problem?”

When her eyes flashed like a plasma grenade, Revan knew her answer.

“Men,” she said, “Fire on the trai—”

Before she could finish speaking, the blade of Revan’s saber pressed through her chest, ending her statement with a pained gasp as the light in her eyes flickered and then slowly went dead. He had seen it enough times before, on the countless faces of the innumerable people he had killed for one reason or another, but it felt different this time.

A statement of just how far the Sith would go to hold onto their dead and rotting dream.

“Anyone else?” Revan asked, pulling his saber from the woman’s chest, suspecting that he already knew the answer when he heard the sound of a saberstaff igniting from behind him.

Spinning, he found himself engaged in a one-sided firefight, bolts deflected off one saber’s blade as he leaped forward, landing next to Bastila before driving in the opposite direction. In his wake, bodies in chrome and black armor crumpled to the ground, their wounds smoldering from the heat, dying with nary a sound except that of their armor clattering against the metal tiles as they fell.

When it was over an instant later, he looked around the room at their charred bodies before meeting Bastila’s eyes, his own emotions reflected back at him. In a way, he couldn’t blame them for having a death wish, not when what awaited them would be a lifetime of imprisonment with no chance of escape or parole on some remote Republic prison world, a place that might very well doom their ancestors to imprisonment simply for being related to them. For them, this had been a release.

And though it hurt him to think about it, it reminded him of Lashowe as the sands of Korriban blew across her corpse.

“Do you think you can get the communications tower functioning properly again?” Bastila asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

Nodding, Revan turned mutely to the controls, pouring over them for a few long moments before he began his work. It was slow, at first, unblocking different frequencies, figuring out how to broadcast on a system he had never used before, but Revan was good with machines. Sometimes he could get them to sing under his fingers, and this interface was no exception.

Soon enough, both visual and audio channels were up and running as the Selkath had intended.

Grinning at Bastila from over his shoulder, Revan flipped a switch, both on the console and in his mind.

Suddenly, he stood straight-backed and stately, his arms clasped behind his back in military attention, staring straight at the recording device as if looking into the eyes of those receiving his broadcast. “People of Mannan,” he began, “I am Commander Revan of the Grand Republic Army and I bring you good news. A small group of rebels is taking your communications tower back at this very moment, and in the space above your planet, a fleet of ships prepares to wage war against the Sith for what they have done to you.”

He took a breath and bowed his head. “We are not here to take your planet from you. Once we have helped you liberate your people, control will be given back to your government with full respects to your sovereignty as an Independent System, but as the man responsible in part for this travesty, I am here now to assure you that the Republic will take full responsibility in assisting you in driving the Sith from your world.”

His eyes shifted, head turning, as if addressing someone else, another participant in this one-sided conversation. “As for the Sith themselves; should you surrender, I will show you mercy. Perhaps you think this a mockery of all you now stand for, but many of you followed me once for a different reason, to liberate the Galaxy from the Mandalorian threat. Had I been wise, I would have lead you in laying down your arms long ago, but you now terrorize the very Galaxy you once swore to save. Lay down your weapons, and I swear to you that you will not be harmed, but know that if you choose to fight, the Republic will show the most extreme prejudice in terminating your lingering threat and all it represents.”

With a flick of his wrist Revan leaned forward and shut off the transmission, turning his attention back to Bastila, immediately shedding the man from the message like another might shed their coat. For a moment they simply stared at one another, Bastila looking up at him as if she were seeing him clearly for the first time before she tore her eyes away, looking towards the ladder that lead to the roof maintenance passage. Revan suspected that it was used to administer repairs to the antenna and keep Mannan from being cut off from the rest of the Galaxy, but right now they would be using it for a different purpose.

Wasting no time, Revan reached up and pulled the access ladder downward, making his way towards the roof above until he finally emerged onto the small, railed platform. Sea air whipped at his clothing, the building seemed to sway beneath him so high up and salt stung his eyes as he reached back down to offer Bastila a hand and pull her the last few feet towards their destination.

Above them Destroyers moved into position, the night sky already darkening with their shadows as they covered the moon, bathing Revan and Bastila in only the blinking red light of the antenna as she sat, crossing one leg over the other, closing her eyes. Turning out towards the city, feeling her power radiate from behind him, Revan watched as smoke darkened the sky, stared at the small shapes of the Selkath as they poured from their homes and into the streets, emboldened by his message to throw their lot in with the rebellion.

As the sounds began from above, joining the sounds below, distant explosions echoing through the atmosphere, the waves of the ocean turned into fire.


	5. Chapter Five

The world was loud and quiet at the same time, heavy with the weight of the dead, grief sinking to the bottom of the potent emotional cocktail in Ahto City like particulate to the bottom of a beaker. Celebration bubbled above it, hope singing through every alley of the city as clean-up ensued, lead by the now free Selkath government with the assistance of Leader Sahsa and her rebels.

In just a few days the city had gone from grim and shadowy to bright with the promise of a future free of subjugation, one where dire lessons had been learned and sovereignty would be respected. There were even rumors that the Selkath were officially considering joining the Republic after this, whose ships they once more welcomed gladly into port, Revan’s soldiers assisting with the revival effort under Carth’s and Bastila’s careful direction.

Whether anything would come of it, Revan did not know, but he planned to leave a small detachment here in Ahto City when they finally did leave the coming day. Nar Shaadda and the chaos there called to him from across the Galaxy, his work still unfinished, though there was a sense of satisfaction in having set things on Mannaan right, even when bodies lined the streets in temperature controlled bags.

Still, the fires were out and the momentum had shifted, which was what concerned Revan as he slipped up through the access panel in the communications tower to make his way to the roof. Just for a moment he wanted to escape the hectic rush of reconstruction, to step away from the pressure of leadership for a single second and catch his breath. Up here it was lonely, but in the kind of way that was rejuvenating, like a breath of cool air after hours trapped in a small room studying or a splash of cold water on a humid day.

Sinking down, Revan sat at the base of the antenna, looking up at the sky for a moment before his eyes slipped slowly closed.

Around him the world swayed peacefully, the sounds of celebration and work distant, only the soft chirping of gaseous beasts caught in the air currents to keep him immediate company. It was fine for the time being, away from the rush and bustle of it all, away from the accusing and guilty eyes of the surviving Sith who surely wondered why they sat in chains while he walked free.

In truth, Revan himself wasn’t sure either.

Not completely, anyway.

He was sure the Jedi would lock him away if they could, send him to some deep place only they could reach him. But the Republic didn’t know the details about his amnesia, they only knew that he had come back more like the man he had been at the beginning than the man who had ravaged their Galaxy and that he was a Jedi again. So maybe the Jedi needed him, needed him so that the people would forgive them the way they had forgiven Revan.

Maybe they were keeping him around so that no one would associate them with the Sith anymore.

The thought made Revan feel sick to his stomach.

Shaking the thoughts away, Revan retreated further into his mind, the warmth of the sun lulling him to sleep, sounds of Mannaan fading away to be replaced with the noises of a different city. He could hear the sound of swoop bikes, his feet against the metal of the ground as he looked up to see the tops of domed sky peeking through stories and stories of shops and apartments, a familiar jumble of city sights on a world that was now no more than rubble and ash.

Beside him stood a dark skinned man with bandages over his eyes, leaning against one of the Jedi under his command for support.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Supreme Commander,” he said in a familiar, gravely voice, “I never expected you to come down here personally.”

“It was the best I could do for you, Thek,” he replied, watching the shapes of the rebels and their charges mill about, a tiny blue Twi’lek scaling a stack of boxes to look out over her Lower City domain. “You know none of the big wigs up top are going to thank you, right?”

“With all due respect, I didn’t do it for them,” Thek said, letting the Jedi lower him to sit on his usual chair in his usual base of operations. “I did it for the people of the Lower City, who suffered the most under the Mandalorians. It’s the poor and destitute who always end up with the short end of the stick. At least this way there’ll be order in the Lower City, though I can’t say how long.”

Revan sighed quietly, the sound escaping through the vents in his mask as he pulled the hood on his robes back and crossed his arms over his chest, watching as the bodies piled up, Mandalorian and civilian alike. No matter what, it wouldn’t be as horrible as the losses on Dxun and Onderon, but at least those deaths had been military ones. It was heart wrenching to see those who hadn’t signed up for this sort of service forced to fight and die because their own government hadn’t been strong enough to protect them.

It had failed in its duty.

“You’re right,” he said to Thek, his voice nearly lost amidst the sounds of recovery and revival. “It’s a shame that the Mandalorians made this bloodshed necessary. I would have liked to fight a clean war, but… There’s no such thing, is there?”

“No,” Thek said. “I lived through the end of the last war, and there has never been anything like a clean war. If the Jedi are on you for your methods, they shouldn’t be,” the old man sighed, closing his eyes. “They’ve done worse, both in action and through their negligence.”

“It’s not about the Jedi anymore,” Revan said with a shrug, “not really. No matter what they think, I’m still a member of their Order.”

In his mind he saw the dark jungles of Malachor V and the shadowy depths of temples filled with arcane secrets of a people who had been annihilated by the Jedi during the Great Hyperspace War. Their teachings lived on in dark places, in the shadowy depths of the Galaxy, for people like Revan to find and learn from so that he could understand the Force in its entirety, not just a single part.

But the desire for the wrong kind of knowledge was an unforgivable sin, and if they knew about the things he felt, about the thoughts he had, they would excommunicate him in an instant, even if what he did he did for the good of all the people orphaned by the Jedi’s lack of effort on their behalf.

“You say that with such confidence,” Thek said, “but are you really sure?”

Revan never found out what he answered, attention drawn by a pair of sunset orange eyes swallowing him, eyes in the face of a dirty little Cathar girl staring at him from amongst the rubble. Awe was written upon her features, awe and a sense of hope, the orange of her irises consuming him as it morphed into a sky alight with the dying blazes of some distant sun, glinting off of Taris’ towers.

“You’ve done more good work,” said a familiar voice to his left, and a pale hand shoved some kind of can into his face.

Snorting, Revan took the offering, leaning out across the guard rail and enjoying the breeze, his mask sitting at his feet. “Thanks for not calling me ‘Master’. I’m getting so kriffing sick of that every damn time someone brings me up in conversation publicly. I don’t think I can endure another adoring look. Honestly, I might combust.”

“Your fate is so horrible,” Malak replied, laughing, “having to put up with being the Galaxy’s savior.”

“It’s not saved yet,” Revan pointed out, twisting the top off the drink and popping it open. “Hell, I’m not even sure we’re close.”

For a moment Malak was quiet, and Revan took the opportunity to look over at him, heart clenching in his chest as he remembered that this was just a dream. In life, Malak had been something else, vibrant with sparkling blue eyes, a square jaw, and an aura that made everyone in the room pay attention to him immediately. Odd, that he’d felt inadequate next to Revan, who had always felt so invisible compared to Malak… Until he wasn’t, and that was only because…

That was only because Revan was always the one with the ideas.

“You worry too much,” Malak said at last, looking more alive in the dream than he ever had in person, “but you always have. About everything.”

Malak paused and then sighed, long and belabored, taking a quick drink before he made a face and poured the whole can out over the balcony. “You need to learn to trust yourself, Rev. Or are you always going to hold onto your mistakes just because some of them happened to get people hurt?”

He opened and closed his mouth, shutting it before he took a drink of his own—warm, but not as terrible as Malak’s reaction had made it out to be. Shrugging, he downed the whole thing in an instant, crushing the can in his hands, feeling satisfied at the noise that it made, running a finger along the new folds and cracks in the material.

“I’m going to hold onto my mistakes,” Revan replied. “If I don’t, I lose what grounds me, and what do I become then?” With all his might, he threw the crumpled can over the edge of the building, watching it fly, surface glinting in the dying sunlight like a ship leaving orbit and entering atmo. “I become like the Sith or the Jedi. Sacrifices are necessary to maintain peace and order, but I don’t ever want to forget what caused me to defy everything I’d ever known in the first place.”

“Do you really think you’ll forget it?” Malak asked. “This is a pattern with you, you know. Giving yourself too little credit. Where would any of us be without that big strategic brain of yours?”

He couldn’t help it.

The words sent him doubling over laughing, the sound echoing over the buildings. It was more joyous than he’d ever heard himself laugh before and it filled him with a certain amount of melancholy that he couldn’t shake, not even when his mouth opened again to speak. “And where would we be without your go-getter attitude?”

The dream faded into static as Revan found himself slowly waking again, Carth’s face looming over him like a shadow. “How can you fall asleep all the way up here?”

“It was just a nap,” Revan muttered groggily, squeezing his eyes back shut for a moment and heaving out a sigh. “Time to go?”

“Time to go,” Carth repeated, nodding and holding out a hand. “Come on, Commander, the Galaxy needs you.”

Swallowing, Revan took the hand, wondering if he’d ended up forgetting those things he’d fought for after all, or if they’d just consumed him to the point where he’d lost his own purpose.

And in the end, did it really matter if he’d just ended up losing himself, anyway?

He wasn’t sure he could ever know.

* * *

 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Bastila asked him, interrupting his thoughts as he stared out one of the Cruiser’s portholes.

Looking at her, he offered her a small smile and a quiet nod, his eyes lingering for a moment before he turned back to the blue and white hyperspace lines zooming past them. Exhaling softly, he leaned against the hull, the cold metal calming him. “Did my nightmare wake you?”

He could hear her hesitation, an answer in and of itself, a nearly imperceptible intake of breath nearly drowned out by the sound of her footsteps as she moved ever so slightly closer. Revan didn’t look again, but he could still see her, hair tousled from sleep, red divots on her face from where she’d leaned too-hard into her pillow, blue eyes filled with sleep.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” Revan responded with a sigh. “I… Uh. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

As if she needed to be told.

“Do you need to discuss it?” she asked, taking a few more steps closer, stopping just short of touching him, so close he could feel her body heat.

“I don’t know what there is to discuss,” Revan admitted, unable to look at her, not trusting his face to behave in her presence, not when she could see through him so easily, in spite of everything. “I blame myself for everything. I’m a complete wreck. It’s not like you needed someone to tell you that.”

Bastila didn’t say anything at first, more hesitance lingering between them like everything else that went unsaid. For a moment he wondered if she would speak at all, but then she broke the silence and he breathed a sigh of relief he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

“Revan, you are not…” she began, cutting herself off to start again. “You are not as broken as you think you are. Every crack is understandable considering the weight you’ve carried for countless years, that you continue to carry even now.”

He barked out a short laugh, turning his head to look at her, trying to maintain his dignity in light of how weak he felt in her presence. She’d already made it clear that she was uncomfortable with this going any further than it already had, and he had told himself he wouldn’t force her hand or try to convince her otherwise.

But it hurt, and it made it impossible to be near her without thinking about all the impossible possibilities of a world where the Jedi Order didn’t have such a powerful hold on them both.

“Bastila, I can’t even remember my own childhood. The only real memories I have of the man I was are all of war and death, and the horrible things I’ve seen and done,” he turned back to the porthole, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t have anything anymore, nothing except the weight of the mask and a name that marks me as a man I’m not anymore… Even if parts of him survive through me.”

Exhaling softly, he shifted his stance, rubbing the back of his neck and briefly catching his own reflection staring back at him from the surface of the transpirasteel. It would never stop surprising him, his own face, sharp and pale with dark, hooded, exhausted looking eyes and a thin mouth that, even now, was pulled up into something a bit like a smile—sardonic as it was. Dark stubble, straight nose, and nearly black hair with streaks of silver already appearing at his temples completed the picture of a man on the wrong edge of average, just a bit awkward and maybe even homely.

Someone who could stand out as much as he disappeared in any crowd.

“My entire world has been reduced to the last few months. You… You have a world beyond the Jedi and the Sith, but for me? That’s my entire world. That’s all I am. I’ve never been anything else,” Revan shrugged, dropping his hand back to his side, wanting to say more but not certain how to find the words.

Sighing, he bowed his head, pressing it against the cold metal, speaking before she could get a word in edgewise. “How’s your mother?”

She didn’t respond immediately, but considering what he’d just dumped on her, he was not particularly surprised. Maybe he’d trapped her, he thought, by changing the conversation topic so quickly, but to escape having to talk about himself for a moment longer? It was worth momentarily inconveniencing her.

“I haven’t seen her,” Bastila admitted, “but I hear she is recovering from her illness.”

Revan heard her shift as she moved closer, her expression one of quiet contemplation. He could already see the gears slowly turning in her mind, evidence enough that he hadn’t escaped uncomfortable topics of conversation quite yet, that she was going to do what she always did and force the matter.

Her stubbornness could sometimes get them both in trouble, it could cause him pain, but somehow he couldn’t help but admire her determination regardless. She did what she thought was right in these sorts of situations, even at the chance that she hurt someone else. Bastila remained determined to make those around her force their weaknesses, a fair turn from the woman he’d first met on Taris, who had so stubbornly insisted in her own superiority—hubris hiding fear.

She had changed, but how could she not?

“That is down to the Order, of course,” Bastila said. “We are not allowed to see family, and I take my vows seriously… Even more so since Malak, although…”

Her face softened and she made eye contact with him, the care worn furrows of her brow contrasting with her soft eyes and trembling lip. “I still struggle with my emotions. He placed a poison deep inside me, Revan, and I cannot escape it. Even now I can feel my rage and resentment at the Jedi boiling—especially when I look at you and all the things they did to make you hate yourself so.”

Bastila’s voice grew quiet, tracing her finger across the divots and bolts of the wall, her expression distant and sad. “You are a good man, Revan. Not a perfect man, but a good one. If not for you, I would have tacitly accepted that my fate was to die after Falling, that I could have no future… But your faith in me pulled me back from the brink of despair. Even now, you give me the strength to go on. I only wish that I could make you see yourself the way I see you.”

“I…” he began, his voice cracking, hands shaking as he restrained his emotion…

At least until she reached out to him, her hand small and strong against his arm, warm and more real than anything else had felt in months.

That single touch turned him to stone, and then melted him, his eyes welling with tears that he hadn’t quite realized he’d been holding back until that precise moment. Taking a shuddering breath, he closed his eyes as her hand reached up to cup his face, finger trailing briefly down his chin as Revan’s knees grew weak and he slowly lowered himself to the ground.

“Revan?” Bastila prompted softly, and he found himself afraid to speak because he was slowly breaking, breaking and cracking.

Swallowing, his fingernails digging into his own palms, Revan forced himself to look into Bastila’s face, finding her kneeling next to him, hand hovering just over his shoulder. “When I went to war for the first time,” he said, “I was not much older than you are now. It’s shaped my entire life, broken me so completely, that I don’t feel comfortable anymore outside of it. I don’t want that for you, Bastila. You deserve better than to be destroyed this way.”

Her hand touched his arm first, but in a moment her arms were wrapped around his shoulders, her head leaning against him as she sat silently at his side. Hesitatingly, taking in her warmth and the gentleness of her presence with no small amount of surprise, he slowly reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist, his eyes slipping closed as he leaned into her touch, a feeling of aching belonging starting in his throat until it reached his chest, where it burned like a small, still flame.

“You also deserved better, Revan,” Bastila said. “The Jedi Order destroys its heroes, and you are no exception to that. Malak wasn’t entirely wrong about the Jedi using me. They placed their shattered hopes for you upon my shoulders, and to them I am sure I am just another disappointment, but…” She breathed out softly, her voice growing so quiet that only he could possibly hear. “But we have still managed more than most would ever think possible. If we judge our worth solely by the tenants of a dogmatic institution that has lost sight of the core of its beliefs, we will never measure up to anyone’s standards, let alone our own.”

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, hope swelling in his chest for the first time in ages.

But not wanting to break the spell and send the moment spiraling back into reality, Revan kept his mouth shut and simply drank in her warmth for a little while longer.

For as long as he could.

* * *

The place reeked of suffering, more suffering than Revan could stand, even as they slowly moved from orbit towards one of the planet’s many Spaceports.

He could feel it, echoing through his limbs, settling in his bones, an ache he couldn’t rid himself of.

Nar Shaadda was filled with ancient suffering, a breeding ground of misery and desperation hidden by a veneer of bright lights and charming smiles. All the casinos on the surface could not make up for the death, desperation, and drudgery that the poor here experienced. Amongst this sort of suffering, detecting the malice and hatred of the Sith would be impossible, not when every child grew up swaddled in resentment and deep anger. This sort of place was more despicable than even the depths of Taris, where there had been some hope because of men like Gadon Thek keeping the peace when no one else would.

All of this left the Czerka Corporation as their only true link to the Sith on this world.

Thankfully, at least the Hutts were willing to cooperate.

Sith, as it turned out, were bad for business, especially when they terrorized your government buildings and your casinos in order to stir up support and generate hatred against the Republic. As morally repugnant as the Hutts may be in some areas, when it came to protecting their profits they were as reliable as a snow storm on Hoth.

“The Cruiser and the rest of the fleet are still in range. If we get in trouble,” Carth was explaining, “they can send in assistance. They’re just a single transmission away.”

“Are you banking on it being better or worse than Mannaan, Sir?” one of the men on the transport shuttle asked, a young gentleman with pale hair and the beginnings of stubble on his chin.

“Worse,” Carth said, catching Revan’s eye. “Urban warfare is bad anyway, but when you add corporate espionage on a world where bounty hunters are a credit a dozen? I’d say we’re in for a bumpy ride.”

“Bumpy?” Revan asked, arching his brow and snorting. “That’s an understatement, Admiral. Nar Shaadda is worse than the vast darkness of the Shadowlands, more polluted than the smoking foundries of Coruscant’s industrial district, with all the glitz and charm of a Corelian con artist.”

The young man’s face was painted by a grimace, several of the other young officers and troopers exchanging concerned glances.

Leaning back in his seat, he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, glancing up at the ceiling of their little transport. Worrying his lip between his teeth, he cast a quick glance towards Bastila, whose brows were furrowed in thought and concentration. He could feel the unease radiating from her, but also a steely sense of assurance, one born of their previous victory.

It put him at ease.

“Well,” he said, his teeth clicking when he closed his mouth.

Exhaling, he began again. “It’s not impossible, though you should expect subterfuge and plenty of duplicity. The Hutts are protecting their holdings by letting us investigate, but Czerka stands to lose a lot when and where the Sith fall. They’ll have to struggle with their image after this, and it will impact them for years to come.”

“So they’re hiding the Sith to cover their asses,” the young soldier said, “and when we do take the Sith in, they’ll just give us a load of bantha shit to get out of it?”

“Bantha shit with a paper trail,” Revan said with a shrug. “It’s not like Adascorp didn’t try to do the same thing when it attempted to take advantage of the Mandalorian Wars to broker weapons to all three sides.”

The light of recognition flickered in Carth’s eyes, side-eying Revan curiously, perhaps wondering if he’d somehow remembered something… Though Revan hadn’t. He’d just made a point of reading everything he could about the Mandalorian Wars in the last several months in order to familiarize himself with his own actions, at least on a surface level. It had triggered a few things, of course, though those things were seldom more than flashes, usually more of associative emotions than they were of actual concrete memories, like words or images.

“Three?” another young soldier asked, probably only eight or so at the time of that long ago war’s unfortunate beginnings.

“The Mandalorians, the Republic,” Revan said, holding up a finger as he mentioned each item, “and my Revanchists.”

“Yes,” Bastila said, “at the time they were not allied with the Republic. As I recall, they were simply a task force investigating the Mandalorian brutality under their own power.”

Carth nodded. “Yeah. I was… I was there, actually, when Adasca called for the meetings. Shit, things have changed a lot.”

He cast his gaze towards his soldiers, though only briefly. “None of you are allowed to mention how old I’ve gotten.”

“Of course not, Admiral,” the second speaker said, “do we look like we have a death wish?”

“You never know. You are under the command of the most insubordinate military commander in the history of the Republic,” Carth said with a small smile and a shrug.

Revan laughed, pressing his hand to his chest in mock offense. “Come on, Admiral, give yourself more credit. I wouldn’t have listened to Saul Karath, either.”

“My point stands.”

The shuttle shuddered as it entered the lower atmosphere, sending them all lapsing into momentary silence as the pilot conversed in rapid Huttesse with the Spaceport authority. Slowly, they were lead into their docking bay by hovering droids waving glowing cones to direct their flight path and prevent collisions, a perfect machine oiled with the express purpose of propping up the casino industry.

Flashy, but nothing could hide the decaying heart of this planet from Revan’s discerning senses.

It took almost no time at all before they were landing. Disembarking, Revan mentioned to Carth offhand that while he worked on organizing their small force, he, Bastila, and the Droids would go scout ahead to see what information they could glean from rumors and hearsay. They looked the most trustworthy, especially in the wake of the Star Forge, now that the Jedi once again had the positive connotations that they lacked during what had quickly become known as the Jedi Civil War.

He supposed that to the average person there was almost no difference at all between Jedi and Sith, not when Sith hadn’t even carried red crystal sabers during Exar Kun’s war.

They were just people with glowing swords who were intent on killing each other over differences those who did not worship the Force could not even begin to understand.

Slipping through the crowd with Bastila a half step behind him, Revan immediately felt himself grow more at ease as he lost himself in the sea of bodies around them. Wookies, Twi’lek, Zabrak, Togruta, Devaronians, Hutts… A mess of shapes and colors and smells that thrust Revan into the familiar role of a man  with a mission, a man who was both another face and a discerning agent of the truth at once. Bastila, for her part, looked more intimidated than he did, but he suspected that came down to the differences in their upbringing, she in the Dantooine Enclave, and he…

He had lived on Coruscant.

“Where should we start?” Bastila asked him, no one noticing her concerned tone, lost among the countless other conversations in more than a half dozen different languages.

“Honestly, I’m thinking of popping into one of the more moderately wealthy shopping districts where they sell speeders manufactured by Czerka and listening to what rumors waft up from office chatter,” he shrugged. “Sometimes that’s the best place to begin.”

She glanced up into his face, seeming about to say something as the expression on her features warped from one of conversational curiosity to one of stoic rage. It was that shift that prompted him to reach out with his senses, and just in time to push them both to the pavement below as a bolt of energy blasted past them, leaving a char mark on the ground and the smell of ozone.

Rolling to his feet as the people around them shouted and scrambled away, Revan turned around just in time to see the glint of black and silver Mandalorian armor through the crowd, hissing as another shot rang out. Leaping towards the left he rolled, finding himself on his feet a moment later as a decade of battle instinct flooded his mind, filling him with information regarding the best way to combat the beskar full plate.

Narrowing his eyes, he flicked his wrists, sabers flying into his hands and igniting with a soft hiss, casting their glow upon the ground.

“Come on, dikut,” he said, senses picking up the presence of at least two other people emerging through the crowd.

Kriffing bounty hunters.

It was always kriffing bounty hunters.

“Exclamation: Finally, something interesting. You know the most fascinating people, Master!”

Grinning, Revan leapt forward, driving his opponent backwards, listening to the sound of Bastila’s saber igniting and the hum as HK’s rifle charging. Eyes burning, he landed, laughing heartily as the Mandalorian attempted to fire on him again only to have his blaster bolt deflected, Revan’s boot making contact with his chest a moment later and sending him flying back into the crowd of civilians gathered to watch the confrontation.

Wasting no time, knowing that it would behoove him to incapacitate rather than kill, Revan reached out with the Force, dragging the imbalanced man towards him. He could hear the grunts of struggle as invisible bonds of will and energy held him in place, the muscles of his face quivering with exertion as Revan ripped off his helmet.

A moment later, his body went limp as Revan slammed his hand into the man’s head—a concussion for sure, but not fatal—falling to the ground in an unceremonious pile.

Turning on his heel, he watched as Bastila felled another of their attackers, driving her back towards T3, who sent a jolt through the woman’s body, stunning her long enough for Bastila to deliver the blow that incapacitated her opponent. A sound from his left drew his attention to the last Mandalorian lining up a kill shot, panic jolting through his endocrine system before he could do anything about it.

Mind blank with screaming white adrenaline, Revan leapt between Bastila and the gunman, crying out as he felt red sear through his right shoulder, blinding him. Agony radiating through his every limb, he felt the second shot pierce his abdomen, heared HK let out a furious mechanical shout and watched the gunner fall dead to the ground at the same time his legs gave way.

It was Bastila’s face, though, pale and filled with fear, that dominated his vision as the grateful void swallowed him, rescuing him from the pain he didn’t bother to fight.


	6. Chapter Six

Revan heard the sounds of boots angrily striking the floor, recognizing the familiar gait and turning toward the Droid working on his shoulder with a small smile and a shrug… Something he regretted when the still-tender flesh of his arm sent aching pain through his torso. Reaching up with his arm, Revan rubbed the back of his neck and smiled at the droid sheepishly, swearing that he saw exasperation glinting in the depths of its electronic eyes.

“I’d get out of here if I were you,” he said conversationally as the doors opened with a force that seemed to punctuate Bastila’s foul mood. “My companion wants to have a private conversation.”

“But, Master Reva—”

“Out,” Bastila said, making her way across the room in a few strides, motioning towards the door.

The droid glanced between then, heaved an electronic sigh, and then wisely nodded and turned to back out of the room. “Should you finish your conversation in a timely manner, please call upon me. I must finish changing the Kolto patches on your shoulder.”

“Sure thing,” Revan said with a smile, dropping his hand back to his side, watching as the droid walked from the room and the doors shut behind it with a click that sounded oddly final.

Turning his face back to Bastila, Revan’s smile vanished as he took in her expression. Cheeks flushed, blue eyes blazing with an intensity he had not seen since their confrontation on the Star Forge, she took a step towards him, her gaze defying him to speak before she had said her piece. This was not a time to trifle with her, Revan thought, and so he remained somber, looking back at her calmly.

“Why?” she demanded, hands balled into fists at her sides. “Why do you always insist on putting yourself in danger for me?”

Revan arched an eyebrow as he looked down into her face, grasping the edge of the table as he leaned forward, locking eyes with her. “Do you really need to ask? I’m hopelessly in love with you, Bastila. I acted on instinct.”

Her face flushed, though Revan could tell that it was in rage, her emotions snapping across the bond between them with enough force that it was painful. Taking a breath, Revan kept his gaze on her, refusing to look away or be cowed by the force of her passionate feelings, especially when he had no idea why she was angry at him, let alone how to deal with it.

Best just to let her speak before jumping to conclusions.

“You need to keep your emotions in check,” Bastila said, the rhythm of her words an odd staccato. “We are members of the Order, Revan. Putting me before the mission is a mistake, one that might send you careening face first back into the Dark Side of the Force.”

“It won’t,” he said simply. “I know what I’m doing, Bastila.”

He sighed, then took a deep breath and continued before she could speak, feeling his brow furrow deeply. “Is it me you’re worried about, or yourself, Bastila? I have perfect control over what I’m feeling and I know that I can act on it without losing myself to obsession. It’s been… It’s been a long time since I was at risk of that.”

The words seemed to take the edge off of her anger, her jaw untensing, the fire in her eyes fading to a dim glow. He watched her, trying to maintain his own calm in the face of her emotions, infecting him, making him feel… a lot, to be perfectly honest. Guilt, and sadness, and a bit of anger of his own, but in this case one of them had to be the calm one. They were both people driven by powerful passions and he… Well, in this, at least, he was the one with years of perspective.

Revan had spent a long time thinking about his relationship with the Jedi, it seemed, where Bastila had only just started on that journey.

“How can you be sure?” she demanded. “How can you possibly trust yourself after everything that’s happened?”

“I learned from experience. Besides, I don’t need to adhere to the Jedi Code,” he smiled a bit, slipping off of the counter and walking towards her. “At least not when they’re out of earshot.”

“But you’re—”

“Here for you,” he said, cutting her off. “I’m here for you. I lost faith in the Jedi a long time ago, Bastila. I don’t know if what they did to me was the right thing or not, and I’m grateful because it led me to you, but I can’t believe in the Code anymore. Not the way I used to, anyway. I’m only a Jedi in name, and I think… Honestly?”

He sighed, and for the first time since they had started speaking he looked away from her, staring off into the distance blankly as he searched for the words he wanted to use. “I think the Jedi know that, too. They want to benefit from what I did so the people trust them after everything that’s happened over the last decade.”

“But how can you not be afraid?” Bastila pleaded, the anger leaving her, replaced by soft desperation. “How can you not realize that putting me before the wellbeing of everyone else might spell doom for the entire Galaxy?”

Slowly Reach reached out for her, cupping her face, watching her wince into his hand. She turned her face away, into his palm, and before long he could feel her tears on his skin, her entire body trembling, hands balled into fists at her side. It didn’t seem likely that she would speak any time soon, looking small and fragile in the large room, still deeply wounded by what Malak and the Sith had done to her.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said quietly, “I feel it, too.”

She looked up at him, wide-eyed through her tears, the question on her parted lips even if no sound came out.

“I’m afraid of losing you,” Revan muttered, “but I’m not afraid I’ll make the wrong choice. Loving you is the only reason I was able to put the Galaxy before my own desires on Rakata Prime. I knew you would never want me to become a monster again, that you believed in the good in me. You saved me, Bastila. It was always you.”

Her lips mouthed the word ‘me’ before she surged forward, wrapping her arms around him, burying her face in his still-bare chest. Slowly he enveloped her in his arms, closing his eyes as he held Bastila close, feeling the heat from her body and her breath against his torso. It was the first time in a long time that he felt the spark of hope inside of his chest as the wall between them cracked and crumbled, leaving her with the knowledge that all he had done he had done for her sake.

If he relied only on helping the Galaxy he might go too far, but with her to remind him what he should stand for…

Revan wouldn’t falter anymore.

“You could leave,” she said softly, her voice demanding his attention, “but you stay for me?”

“I’d rather be miserable than let you go through this alone,” Revan said, tangling the fingers of one hand in the loose strands of her long hair. “It’s not fair to you, even though I know seeing me upset can’t be easy for you, either.”

“It’s not,” Bastila replied, voice muffled by his skin. “I don’t know what to do. I still believe in the Jedi, but you…”

She pulled away slightly, looking up into his face. “How can you possibly stay when every breath is a reminder of both their failures and your own?”

Cupping her cheek in one hand, Revan gently wiped away her tears with his thumb, leaning forward to press a kiss against her forehead. “Because,” he whispered, “you exist.”

She seemed about to say something but the door opened again, the sound of T3’s motor whirring making Bastila back away quickly, her face tinged with embarrassment. Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck and then reached out for his shirt, sash, and belt; the healing would have to wait until later, because Revan suspected that whatever the droid was about to say, it was important.

It was just a shame he had to interrupt right then, because Revan’s chest already ached for Bastila’s absence.

“What is it, pal?” Revan asked, shrugging his shirt back onto his shoulder, wound still aching.

T3 quickly rattled off a series of beeps, explaining that Carth wanted to see them in the conference room of their Cruiser with urgent news.

Glancing to Bastila as he tied the sash back around his waist, Revan gave a small grin. “Looks like we’ve got to get back to work. Come on,” he sighed, “we’d better get going and see what our erstwhile Admiral wants before he gets impatient. You know how Carth can be.”

Slinging his belt back on, then calling his sabers to his hands, Revan didn’t look back as he left the room, not sure he could stand to see the expression on Bastila’s face if he did.

* * *

 

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Revan said the moment after Carth asserted that their attackers were Mandalorian.

“They were hired by Czerka,” another of the officers added, a frown plastered on an already severe face, her tone hardly amused.

“Definitively?” Revan asked, glancing towards her briefly before his eyes danced back toward Revan.

“Definitively,” Carth replied.

Sinking down into the chair at the head of the conference table, Revan idly ran his fingers over his lips as he leaned forward, staring blankly at the wall across from him. Around him officers and analysts were gathered, staring at him with an expression of expectation on their faces, making Revan wonder if they were recalling his sudden flash of brilliance above the seas of Mannan. He wasn’t really expecting the same thing twice in a row, knowing that his recollection tended to be more erratic than Jolee Bindo’s sense of humor, but found himself hoping that it would happen again anyway.

Bouncing his leg up and down, Revan looked up into Carth’s face expectantly. “Well, you have to have some idea of what you want to do. Give me ideas, here. We can’t just sit on this.”

“We don’t know much,” Carth explained, seeming to exhale a breath Revan hadn’t really realized he’d been holding. “Czerka headquarters here on Nar Shaadda assures us that they cut all ties with the Sith after the destruction of the Star Forge, and their public records indicate they have. We’ve been trying to break their encryption, but they must have a good slicer in their employ because not even T3’s been able to break through their firewalls.”

T3 beeped incredulously, but the sound was quickly followed by a mournful whine when Carth glared at him.

“I suggested trying to contact those in the black market who might have dealings with them,” the dour lady officer commented off-handedly. “If the Sith are using Czerka, they may very well be attempting to gather artifacts to defeat the Republic and the Jedi.”

Something about the words triggered something in Revan, though he wasn’t really certain what, his brow furrowing as he tried to place the feeling.

“Trying to get them to talk to us will be difficult, but you’re persuasive,” Carth pointed out, building on his officer’s point, “and as far as I figure, this is our best bet. It’s not like we’ll be able to trace them any other way, and Czerka’s our only link to the Sith.”

Revan blinked slowly, looking up into Carth’s face, watching his friend’s expression warp from one of certainty to one of clear exasperation. “You’re thinking something, Revan. What are you thinking?”

“Would those artifacts include holocrons?” Revan asked, eyes briefly glancing towards Bastila, who took a half step forward to respond to his query.

“Yes,” she said, “though I fail to see how this will help us track down the Sith.”

Flexing his fingers as he looked down at his hands, Revan could suddenly feel the heat of a blazing sun on his back as he sat outside on a wind-worn red rock. The table underneath him disappeared, his breath coming through the filter of the mask, a small, reflective black pyramid in his hands, Sith writing etched into the surface, curling around the sides in its sinister script.

His hands glowed, red and violet tendrils of energy wrapping around the pyramid, clawing and creeping up the sides as they filtered into the top, the Dark Side singing with its heady appeal. Revan felt it in his bones, singing through him, pulsing and pushing with the weight of destiny as his own mouth spoke words he couldn’t quite hear, like he was listening to them from a long way off even though they echoed through the valley like thunder.

And then he was back at the conference table, the sound of the air conditioning through the vents pulling him back to the present, new thoughts crashing around in his mind. He was aware that everyone was staring at him, expecting him to say something, some expressions more concerned than others, though all looked a bit confused.

Tongue darting out to lick his lips, Revan looked up into Carth’s face. “We’re going about this the wrong way.”

“How do you figure?”

“Czerka’s just the puppet,” Revan explained. “It’s pointless to worry about them, especially when they’re just going to try to get out of it by using corporate loopholes. Our best bet is to go after the Sith directly.”

“And I assume you have a plan?” the lady officer asked, her tone more curious than anything else.

“The inkling of one, maybe,” Revan said, glancing towards her as he stood. “There are plenty of ways we could bait out the Sith, make them come to us. We already know they’re here, so it’s just a matter of circulating a message through the right places…” His eyes flickered between Carth and the lady officer. “The black market, for example. We can easily turn the Sith’s control of Czerka against them.”

“And you’re sure this will work?” the woman asked.

Carth and Revan locked eyes for a moment, the two of them staring at one another. He could feel Carth searching his face, testing Revan, making sure that Revan knew what he was doing, and when he at last seemed satisfied, he looked away and sighed. “He’s sure.”

Smiling, Revan walked towards the porthole at the side of the conference room, looking out onto the mesh of cities and lights that flashed around them from the landing pad. For a moment he let it consume him, reached out with his senses to feel beyond the hurt he’d sensed when entering atmosphere to search for the Dark, flickering heart of the Sith, feeling it somewhere out there in the tangled mass of emotions and sensations that comprised Nar Shaadda.

Leaning against the wall, he turned back to his companions, a small smile on his face. “I have a plan,” he said, “and you’re not going to like it, because in order to make it work I’m going to have to teach all of you to think like a Sith.”

The look on Carth’s face spoke volumes, disgruntled but resigned, and if he felt that way…

Well, his men were sure to follow.

There were few things as good as a reliable and inspirational Naval Commander, Revan thought, glancing briefly to the wary-faced lady officer.

“Okay, Revan,” Carth said at last, sighing heavily, “have it your way. You’re the boss.”

“Gather the men here. We’re in for a long night,” Revan said, glancing back out the porthole. “I want you all back here after lunch. I have an arm to finish fixing up, after all.” Pausing, he ran his fingers over his lips, smiling quietly to himself. “And make sure you order food here later. We’re in for what’s sure to be a long night.”

“Yeah,” Carth muttered as he turned around to leave, “I’m sure we are.”

Revan turned around only when he heard the team’s footsteps recede, T3 following them, locking eyes with Bastila, who still stood silently in one corner of the room. For a while, they simply stared at one another, locking eyes, her confident, calm expression edged only slightly with anxiety by the time she turned around and walked from the room without speaking a word.

No matter what she had been about to say, Revan thought, it was good to see that she had gained some of the confidence she’d once had back.

Bastila deserved better than to live in the long shadow that he and Malak cast.

* * *

As Revan had predicted, the night had turned out to be a long one, the Republic soldiers arguing back and forth with him about his plan. It wasn’t one that they really seemed to like or appreciate, preferring to take the straightforward approach, but when he explained that this would end up saving lives in the long run their arguments had ceased and they’d stood at rapt attention.

Now, lying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling as he waited for sleep to come to him, Revan couldn’t help but replay the events of that conversation in his head. His mind moved with the shadows of Carth and the soldiers they’d brought with them, puppets mimicking speech and body language, cementing the plan in Revan’s mind and helping him prepare for what he would inevitably face tomorrow.

“The Sith will never buy that I’m a traitor,” said Carth’s voice, dark eyes glowering, the shape in his mind standing with arms crossed over its chest.

“Which is why you won’t be going,” Revan replied, sitting on the edge of the table and casting Carth a withering glance. “You’ll stay here and coordinate things with Bastila. I need my best people heading the rescue team because this could get messy.”

Bastila’s face flashed behind his eyelids, nervous and a bit incredulous, holding in whatever criticism she doubtless had.

Revan had appreciated it.

“And you’re sure this will work?” Carth had asked, softening his voice, likely noticing the way he looked at Bastila.

Drawing himself out of his thoughts, Revan turned his full attention back to Carth and smiled widely. “I’m an expert at doing the impossible, Admiral Onasi. Give me some credit here. I know the plan has a lot of risks, but just think of the reward.”

The reward, right.

The Sith that he had to face again for the first time since Malak’s death. Fighting military officers on Mannan had been one thing, but these enemies were rumored to have Dark Jedi among them, Force Sensitives who he’d tempted away from the Order back when he’d still been Darth Revan instead of just… Revan, the Prodigal Knight.

Turning over on his side, Revan tried to capture the conversation again, refusing to let his mind wander too far from the point.

He needed to feel confident about his decisions as a military leader, even though he currently felt like he was stumbling around into walls, making all his decisions based on the memories of the man who had died on the bridge of the Behemoth.

“You sure they’ll all come?” Carth had asked.

“No, but even if they don’t, the ones left will flee back to Korriban rather than risk confronting me when I have the advantage,” Revan‘d said with a lazy shrug, drawing a knee to his chest. “We either get them through asking for surveillance of the space ports, or we take them in when we go to Korriban.”

A few would slip through the cracks, but without a support network they couldn’t do much more than cause a bit of chaos by themselves.

“And all we have to do is send you into the Krayt Dragon’s mouth to get it,” Carth had said with a heavy sigh, rubbing his hand over his stubble. “You’re really sure about this?”

“If I don’t do this, it’s spend months going over documents of black market transactions,” Revan had replied. “Yeah, I’m taking a risk and the soldiers who are going with me are taking a risk, but wars aren’t won by playing it safe. You should know that, Carth.”

Finally, there had been a resigned sigh. “We’ll start leaking the rumor about potential Jedi defectors having subdued Revan. I’m suspecting to hear something from the criminal underground before nightfall. News travels fasts on city worlds.”

And it did.

By the latest hours of that night, bridging on the transition to the next day, people were whispering about a meet up between Republic defectors and the Sith in the Red Light District of the city.

So Revan was set to play his own hostage in a situation he himself had staged while Carth and Bastila played rescue. Really, he couldn’t blame them for feeling pressured when his life was quite possibly in their hands, but they’d watched one another’s backs before. Revan trusted them, even though he could feel the tension in their little shuttle that night radiating from every corner, like the entire ship was holding its breath and waiting for some kind of resolution.

And a resolution it would have…

Force willing, a good one.

A knock on his door prompted him to sit up, slinging his legs over the edge of his bed before shrugging his robe back onto his shoulders, not bothering to close it. Instead, he wrapped his arms around his chest to keep it closed, calling out for his visitor to enter.

In the doorway stood Bastila, a silhouette in the bright light of the hallway.

“May I come in?” she asked quietly. Revan’s soft nod beckoned her inside, where she was momentarily swallowed by the darkness.

Leaning over, Revan flicked on the bedside lamp, though he didn’t need to see her face to sense her nervousness. Their Bond helped him to feel what she was feeling, and it made him realize that whatever she was about to say, it was very difficult for her to say. This was further enforced as he watched her sway from foot to foot, taking a deep breath before she began to speak again, taking a bold step forward as she did so.

“I…” she began, cutting herself off to gather her words before she started again. “I feel I owe you an apology.”

“An apology?” Revan asked, his hands braced on the sides of the bed as he looked up into her uncertain face, wondering if she’d been plagued by sleeplessness as well, and wondering if maybe it was somehow his fault.

“Our conversation before, it made me realize I was doing something you once asked me not to do anymore,” Bastila asserted, raising her chin high, feeling her will flare as she forced herself to meet his eyes, hair highlighted gold in the lamplight. “I had decided what was best for you, that you should give yourself over to the Code and try to start again, rather than thinking what you might want. I only thought of myself.”

Revan bowed his head, staring at his bare feet on the floor of his room, reaching upwards to rub his hand over the stubble already on his face, though he’d shaved that morning. Smiling slightly, unable to stop himself from feeling touched that she’d remembered his words, he looked back up to her with a lopsided smile on his face. “Thanks. I forgive you, especially since….” Revan shrugged and sighed. “Well,  you’ve been through a lot.”

“We both have,” Bastila said. “But… Thank you. I… I sometimes feel your forgiveness is more than I deserve.”

He couldn’t stop himself from laughing at that, smiling widely, feeling his chest grow soft with affection as he looked into her face. “How could I not forgive you? Look at what I’ve done.”

Bastila smiled back, not hesitating as she took one step forward, then another, until she was standing before him, reaching out her hands to cup his face. Leaning into her touch, he closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of her skin against his cheeks when she stroked slowly down the sides of his face, touch filled with so much tenderness that it made his throat tight.

“I promise your trust in me won’t be misplaced,” Bastila said, her voice prompting Revan to open his eyes, finding her expression a tender one, one that completely consumed his attention. “I will save you from the Sith, Revan, and when we come back… I believe it’s time we finally had a proper discussion about the Jedi and whatever future we might have together.”

Leaning forward, Bastila mimicked his actions from before, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead, her smell and touch overwhelming him. In his chest, his heart ached and soared at the same time, breaking just a bit when he watched her draw away, longing to draw her in closer, her presence singing through his veins.

“Goodnight,” he muttered softly, looking up into her face.

Bastila smiled back, and he could feel that she was just as reluctant to leave as he was to see her go, but she turned away nonetheless, walking back towards the door. Bathed in light once more, she looked back over her shoulder, a smile in her voice as she spoke. “Sleep well, Revan.”

And then she was gone, leaving Revan filled with a new sense of anticipation, one that he was certain would let him sleep no more than the other.


	7. Chapter Seven

Among the dark faces of the robed men and women, Revan was surprised to find there were a few that he recognized, though in his mind they were much younger than the pallid and scarred people waiting for him. He could feel their corruption seeping from them, and he had never been so acutely aware before that he was the cause of their Fall, even if indirectly.

Pulled from his thoughts but the feeling of a rifle butt jamming into his back, Revan stumbled forward, hissing as his knees hit the ground hard, the sensation traveling through his bones and up his spine. Glaring, he looked towards the men escorting him, Republic troopers in the tell-tale white and orange armor, his eyes quickly darting back towards the Sith. They were staring down at him, some with looks of contempt, others a mix of awe and wariness, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing.

“Well, I’ll be,” the leader said, a Zabrak woman with a rough voice and glowing orange eyes. “I guess I’ve lost the bet, after all. It really is his Dark Lordship.”

“You know, I would say I remember you, but I’ve seen so many low ranking grunts in the last several years…”

“Oh, it’s him,” said another of the Sith, “I would remember that horrible sense of humor anywhere. And to think he turned traitor. He’s actually working with the kriffing Republic…”

“I’ve always been charming,” Revan said, “You know—”

He was cut off with a slap to the face, the Zabrak woman backhanding him, jaw stinging. It was... Unexpected, more because it was sudden than because it had actually hurt a great deal. After Saul Karath’s ruthless torture, after the Leviathan, after seeing Alek die in his arms, he could endure almost anything that people threw at him.

“Wow,” he said, shifting his sore jaw. “Rude.”

She hit him again, harder this time, and he bowed his head, trying to stem the wave of laughter threatening to bubble to the surface. It was just so ridiculous, this entire thing, and though a part of him felt guilt at having dragged them down, he had to admit that they weren’t that different than Malak. Just like his best friend had, he may have started them on the path, but now?

They’d chosen this for themselves.

It was just too tragic to cry anymore.

“Well, you came through, Republic Dogs,” the second Sith to speak said, throwing the lead trooper a bag that jingled; a bag full of credit chips. “Take this and get the hell out of here.”

“Didn’t want to listen to him talk anymore anyway,” the soldier said, a bit too convincingly. “Have fun with the chatty bastard. No skin off our teeth.”

Revan listened to the sound of their footsteps receding, closing his eyes and breathing in and out slowly. They would be safe, which was what mattered—fast, easy, drop, no drama, no long, drawn out conversations that would provide a chance for the Sith to read their emotions.

No emotions except his, that was.

“So,” he began, his voice taking on a mock-conversational tone, “are you going to take me home without buying me dinner first?”

“Very clever,” the Zabrak drawled, leaning down into his face. “I can’t believe it, the former proud Lord Revan, laid low by a bunch of Republic Dogs. Did you go with them so you didn’t hurt them?” Her eyes flashed like orange strobe lights in a Coruscanti night club. “Have you fallen so low?”

“I’ve always liked disappointing people,” Revan said with a shrug. “Honestly, this outcome was probably inevitable from the very beginning.”

As he spoke the words it struck him as odd that they rung through the Force as clear as a bell, a simple and incontrovertible truth.

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll pay for your crimes now,” the woman said, pulling back, her eyes narrowed into slits as she stared into the distance, as if sensing…

“You know, it doesn’t have to be this way,” Revan said suddenly, drawing the eyes of the Dark Jedi and their trooper escort back to him. “The Jedi and Republic took me back, and there are always going to be consequences but it’s not too late to turn it around.”

“Is that what you told Lord Malak?” said the other Sith, his voice shaking. “Before the end, when you took his life?”

Bowing his head, Revan swallowed, feeling his throat grow tight. “Alek made his choice, and I had to honor that. I lead him to the path, but he chose to walk down it, and in the end he decided to die himself.” He looked up, staring into the young man’s face, searching its depths. “He is one with the Force now, free from this world and its cruelty. If you want to know which one of us is suffering more, well…”

He shrugged, his lips tugging up into sardonic smile. “It’s the one of us that survived.”

The man looked stricken, though whatever was going on inside of him was quickly silenced by the forceful Zabrak snapping at him. “Do not indulge this weakness! His mind is filled with Jedi lies, Loran! You can’t trust anything he says!”

Finally Revan’s laughter spilled over, deep, loud, and ironic, bubbling from him. His entire body shook with it, voice echoing through the alleyway, like a Krayt Dragon in a canyon, as he pushed himself to his feet, hands till bound in front of him as he stared down the woman.

She suddenly seemed to remember how tall he was, remembered the shadow he cast over people, the glinting of eyes behind a mask. He wondered if his laughter echoed in their heads as well, a tone more maniacal, perhaps just as desperately unhinged. Revan felt like he was grasping for something, some semblance of self, as he straightened his slouch and stood at full height, his laughter subsiding as he looked out at each and everyone one of the individuals standing before him. “The Jedi don’t like me any more than you do. I haven’t gone back to the Light for their sake—I did it because people were suffering, something that some of you will remember caring about from back in the day, back before you Fell.”

There was a soft beeping, several of the Sith jumping at the noise, as the shackles fell from his wrists and clattered to the ground noisily.

Rubbing his wrists, Revan took a step forward, reaching out his hands as his sabers flew through the air, awareness tingling at the back of his neck. Flipping them so that they were right-side-up, he ignited them, his face cast in the dual violet and silver glow, highlighting the sharp angles of his face and dronwing the rest in shadow. “If you surrender you won’t be harmed, but there will be no mercy for the unrepentant.”

As much as he wished otherwise, but that, too, was down to the Sith.

They would fight until the last man just to prove a point.

As if to punctuate his statement the sound of a saberstaff igniting followed his words, the soft hum of dozens of blasters charging singing in its wake. The noises left the Sith man scrambling, his eyes searching the faces of everyone around him, a few just as terrified looking, or perhaps uncertain, even a few of the helmeted soldiers fidgeting uneasily with their guns. Others had eyes that spat venom and licked fire, as toxic and destructive as the Dark Side tended to be when you handed yourself over to it without a single thought of the consequences.

The Force was both transformative and reflective, binding and guiding, healing and corrupting, and it all depended on the nature of the people who let themselves be lost in its wake. Sith were the only people who thought they could control a natural force, could tame the ocean, at the same time declaring themselves to be nothing more than its humble tools. And right now, the zealotry that such a thought process brought?

That was what Revan could see reflected in their faces.

“The Sith will never surrender,” the Zabrak hissed, even as the man and his cohorts put down their weapons and backed away, red saber roaring to life like fury incarnate, “never.”

“I know,” Revan said, regret seeping into his own voice, “and even though I know it isn’t worth anything to you anymore, I’m sorry.”

He took a step forward, leveling the tip of his violet saber at her as Bastila sprang from the top of a building, landing neatly at his side, and Republic Troopers filled the alleyway, some of them pulling the ones who had surrendered through towards the other side, heeding their raised hands. They looked like an army of faceless bugs, red, orange, and white standing out starkly against the grey permacrete and blackened durasteel, the Sith the smaller, weaker prey that they would soon consume.

Revan only hoped that the Republic had learned from past mistakes, and as nine more red sabers joined the burning red center of the still-beating Sith heart, the fear and resolve in their eyes as they stared the end in the face apparent, he wondered at the bits that had been salvaged and if he couldn’t somehow speak out on their behalf.

He only hoped he would be able to convince the Jedi and Republic to embrace mercy and extend them the same chance at redemption he had been unwittingly extended what was really only less than a year ago.

* * *

“It’s only a matter of time, you know,” Carth said, his voice nearly lost in the smoky little hole-in-the-wall cantina that reminded Revan something awful of the places on Taris.

“Before the Jedi bring a transport to take the Force-Sensitive prisoners?’ Revan asked, knowing full well that wasn’t what Carth meant, watching the way the neon lights on the walls played through the haze, running a gloved finger idly along the rim of the tiny shot glass he held in his hand.

He could feel the way Carth looked at him, as sharp as the alcohol Revan kicked back, though that still burned less than the Admiral’s eyes, in some ways. Why he’d agreed to go out drinking with a man who regularly waxed poetic about the ‘good old days’ any time he could get Revan had no idea, especially because his good old days didn’t really exist, more hazy than the lights through the cantina smoke.

“Don’t be smart,” the Admiral muttered, dropping his gaze, leather coat rustling as he stared at the reflective metal surface of the bar.

“I can’t help it,” Revan said with a shrug, the sound of the kloo horns as the band picked up another sung buzzing through his bones, helping to relax him and loosen his tongue. “If you brought me here to get me drunk enough to talk about my emotions it’s probably going to work, so you should start talking before I lose my nerve and go back to the shuttle.”

“Who says the booze is to loosen your lips?” Carth asked, though his tone was surprisingly light, helping to put Revan at ease. “I’m about to spill my guts to you, and if I need a bit of liquid courage? Well… so be it.”

Still, he didn’t seem to drink much, nursing his Alderaanian whiskey between his hands.

Revan leaned forward, tilting his head as he looked towards Carth, the man’s dark eyes even darker in the shadows, his stubble standing out clearly against his skin. He finally looked like a man near his forties, something that Revan himself felt in his bones very much in that moment, envying the Twi’leks twisting on stage, youthful and unaware of the toll that time would one day reek on their bodies. Sighing, he closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the drum pounding through the floor just underneath the buzz and click of conversation wafting around them.

“I don’t really know what I’ve told you about Morganna,” Carth began.

Revan lifted his head, though he still leaned across the bar, eyes flickering across Carth’s features to get a good idea of his emotional state—difficult when the man tried to look more reserved than Revan knew he had to be. After a moment he gave up and sighed, sitting up fully once more and motioning to the Ithorian bartender, who pushed him another shot, “Dustil’s mother?”

“Yeah,” Carth said, “Dustil’s mother.”

“Not much. I know you loved her. I know she was a charismatic woman,” he shrugged, then took another breath, shooting his drink back. “I know she wooed you,” he said after a moment, just relishing the burn, “somehow.”

“She drew me out of my shell,” Carth said. “Made me feel like I was alive for the first time ever. I mean, I haven’t always been this grouchy,” he said, finally taking a quick swallow of his whiskey, “but I’ve always been reserved. It’s not like she was a loud woman, either, just…. Warm, like the sunshine on a day in late spring, when the cold has finally seeped out of the world, but it’s not hot enough to be summer yet.”

He didn’t say anything, watching the look on Carth’s face, waiting for him to continue and get to the point, because there had to be one. When Carth had called him out here, in spite of hating this city just as much as Revan himself did, he’d known that Carth had wanted to discuss something fairly important. So it was just a matter of letting the Admiral get there on his own time, and if he had to talk of some of his own issues while doing it?

Well, Carth was a friend, and Revan was willing to listen.

“Stubborn, too,” Carth said at last, breathing out a heavy sigh, his shoulders tense with grief. “I didn’t really know what to make of her at first, honestly. She drove me nuts, and then later, she drove me nuts in a positive sense, but I never really… I mean, I never really knew what to do with her flirtations or how to respond. Even when I knew she loved me and I loved her, I was still pretty damn married to my job.”

Revan could see the thread of this already and wanted to interrupt, but he held his tongue, instead leaning back ever so slightly on his stool, using his legs to help keep his balance. Carth had to say his piece, and Revan respected that, even if he didn’t really want or need any of the advice that Carth had to offer. After all, there had been a time when Carth had hated him, so the fact that he could even talk to Revan like this now was…

It was incredible, actually.

“But, eventually…”

Carth took a shuddering breath, his hands tightening on the glass until his knuckles turned white, “eventually, she won me over. I realized that she… mattered more, that the chance of a life with her was worth more to me than my job.” His face fell and he looked bitterly into his drink. “Or at least I thought I had.”

“Carth—”

“No. I need to wrestle with it, for Dustil’s sake and mine,” Carth said simply, “now that I can finally process it and try to… try to move on.” He reached up with a shaking hand and rubbed his hand over the bottom of his face. “I think that you and Bastila… You deserve better. I just recognize that part of myself in her, the… married to her work part.”

Revan nodded, turning to his glass, watching the way the brightly colored light glittered across its surface. “She is,” he conceded. “She believes in the Jedi Code and I … Don’t.”

Though she had promised to think about it, not that Carth necessarily needed to know that.

The words, soft and pleading, balanced on the knife’s edge of bitterness and regret, reminded Revan that he had friends in this life as much as he’d had them in the last. Smiling, he glanced toward Carth, running his fingers over the faceted surface of his small glass. “Thanks,” he muttered. “I… I’m going to talk to her again, about this, about… us. I didn’t give up on her when she Fell, Carth. I’m not going to give up on her now.”

Carth looked surprised, but the expression quickly vanished from his features as he stared quietly into the distance. “When you’re young, you think you know what you want to do with your life, and you can only think about how to change the world. I think we can both agree that it’s who you know and not what you do that really makes all the difference.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Revan said, motioning the bartender over one more time, feeling himself slowly start to relax as he seldom did.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Carth smile.

“Okay,” the Admiral said, “for old time’s sake.”

He raised his glass, and Revan, grinning from ear to ear, clicked the mouth of his own tiny tumbler to Carth’s. 

“To pulling our heads out of our asses way after we should have,” Carth said simply.

“Well,” Revan said, chuckling to himself, ”better late than never.”

And then he drank another shot down.

* * *

 

The moment he saw her, he sobered.

He wasn’t really sure what it was, but walking back to the shuttle and seeing her looking out over the cityscape, bathed in the light of Nar Shaddaa’s brightly lit signs and the headlights of passing speeders, brought him fully back to his faculties. Perhaps it was her own sharpness of mind that cleared the fog in his head, though he could never be sure.

Walking to her side, Revan joined her, looking out towards the city. Clouds were caught between the tips of the skyscrapers not far above them, endless balconies extending below, each revealing a layer of society more decrepit than the last; and on a world like this one, a world controlled by the Hutts? That might even be worse than Coruscant’s darkest underbelly, where cthon roamed the sewers, joined by defunct maintenance droids and people so poor it was all they could do just to sleep, shivering, in an old pipe at night.

Entire generations swallowed by the city with no chance of escape.

“Why would they come here?” Bastila asked, her voice small, words mirroring his thoughts. “Do they distrust the Republic so much that they would run into the arms of gangsters?”

“Yes,” he said, not sparing it any thought, “besides, most of these people probably were never Republic citizens to begin with. They’re from places like Tatooine, worlds on the outskirts that don’t get any Republic help, that aren’t good enough for us to interfere on the behalf of. Countless worlds went without a sound during the Mandalorian Wars.” He sighed and leaned out over the railing. “It wasn’t until the Republic itself was breached that they cared that the Mandalorians had been taking planets since the moment they were sure Exar Kun had drawn his last breath and the rest of the Sith were scattered or defeated.”

“I don’t remember it that well,” Bastila admitted. “I had just become a Padawan, and I only remember visiting Dantooine in time to hear Malak give a speech about the purpose of the Revanchists.”

“You were young,” he said with a shrug. “There were other things you had to worry about, like learning the Jedi Code and passing your trials. When we’re kids, bad things don’t affect us that much, I think, if we even realize bad things were happening to begin with… Especially Jedi Children. We’re removed from everything else. Funny,” he turned to her, smiling a bit, though he didn’t feel any sort of amusement, “I don’t feel a sense of peace because I don’t know what it’s like to have parents. I just feel empty.”

She didn’t say anything, not immediately, anyway.

Instead she looked away from him, her gaze distracted as her eyes darted between speeders, watching them go from place to place. Most of them were taxis driven by droids, heading to one casino or another, ferrying people who’d saved enough for a vacation to their destinations, where very few of them would win anything back and probably leave with more bad memories than good. Maybe it was cynical, he thought, running a gloved thumb absently over his lips, but even the joy here seemed as manufactured as the holographic trees, projected every several yards to give the illusion of greenery.

All he felt was desperation.

Desperation and greed.

“Did you ever believe?” Bastila asked suddenly, pulling him from his thoughts.

“Believe?”

“Did you ever truly believe in the Jedi? In the Code?” she reiterated, turning to face him fully, her blue eyes burning with desperation for some sort of resolution that he wasn’t sure he could give her.

Sighing, he turned around, bracing himself against the rail, looking up at a sky so polluted with light that it looked like dusk even in the dead of night. “I don’t remember.”

Reaching up, he rubbed the back of his neck, furrowing his brow as he tried to think back through the void of his memories. There was nothing, really, not anything substantial, anyway… A smile from Alek, the sound of Meetra laughing, being lifted into someone’s arms as a child, the feeling of being pulled forward as he traveled offplanet the very first time, the glow of the Star Maps, the searing pain as his body was consumed by fire…

And then nothing else, just feelings of regret, of anger, and of betrayal.

“I think I did,” he said at last. “I can’t imagine it would hurt so much that they never believed in me if I didn’t, and I guess it wouldn’t bother me even now that they’re just content to use me if I hadn’t had more faith in them at some point.” Revan laughed, glancing towards Bastila, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest, looking small and insecure. “At the same time, though… I wonder if I’m the one in the wrong most days. I get angry about it, but… I really was a monster.”

Quickly he looked away, dropping his hand back to his side, where it hung, feeling limp and useless. “Look at all the things I’ve caused. Even this… Even the refugees… It’s all because of me, in the end. I have no right to criticize anyone for taking an extreme measure when that’s all I’ve ever done from the very beginning.”

“Has it…” Bastila began, her voice nearly swallowed by the sounds of the city before she cleared her throat and started again, “has it ever occurred to you that the reason you hadn’t learned moderation is because the Jedi were the ones who raised you? It does not justify what you did, but you feel remorse,” she said, reaching out, placing a small hand on his arm, “I know you feel it. There isn’t a moment when I cannot feel what you feel, burning inside of my chest, making my throat tight. How you even function some days, I…” She hesitated, then shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Pulling away, he could feel her anger flare, her fists balling at her sides as she whipped her head about, staring up at the shuttle with furious eyes. “They abandoned you, just as they would have abandoned me had I not chosen to come back of my own accord. The Jedi just gave up on you, Revan, the moment they no longer understood your motivations! They did not pull you back from your obsession with the Mandalorians and the stability of the Galaxy, and they did not provide you support!”

And just as her anger had burned hot in an instant, it quickly faded, her body going lax as she looked down towards her feet. When it became apparent she wasn’t going to move, Revan took a step forward and then another, until he was standing behind her, close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her body, nearly touching her.

“They do not fear attachment, Revan,” she told him, turning around. “That is the word they use to describe it, but I know now that what they fear is excess and obsession. And because they never face their fears, because they never struggle and accept their weaknesses, in the end their obsession with the outside world consumes them when attachments should be our salvation.”

She took a breath, her eyes flickering briefly to look up at his face before dropping back to the tips of her boots. “It was my love for you that drew me back to the Light, Revan. All the Jedi philosophy in the world could not have saved me in that moment, but you… You did.”

Revan’s heart skipped a beat at the words, his breath stopping when she looked back up into his face, this time with a resolve in her eyes that he had not seen since she had pushed him away on the Leviathan. She reached up, placing her hands on his chest, stepping so close that she pressed against him, rooting him in place as his mouth fell open, her expression turning into something deeply private, something he knew only he would ever see on her face.

She smiled, playful, but also shy, her eyes tender, and when she spoke it was with a conviction that rang through him and settled in his bones. “I won’t be afraid anymore, Revan. How can I when it was you who helped me reconcile with my mother? Who taught me to face my feelings and work through them rather than run? I want to be with you, I—”

He didn’t give her a chance to finish her speaking, reaching out and lifting her up into his arms, swallowing her cry of surprise with his lips as he kissed her.

It was stupid, he told himself, stupid and rash, but it was all he could think to do. The way she was speaking… Against all odds… It made something swell in his chest, something that chased away the gloom that always hung over him, the gloom he was determined to deny control. He wanted this, had wanted this since before the Leviathan, and now…

Now he could feel her responding, her arms winding around his neck as she kissed back, a tenderness in the kiss that hadn’t been there the last time.

There was no more hesitance, no more walls, and for a time she replaced all the pain in him with love.


	8. Chapter Eight

Duro.

It was there, overshadowing Korriban, dominating his vision.

Already, Revan could feel himself slipping in and out of consciousness, reaching out to grasp the console as he let the memories take him. He knew not to fight them this time, that he should openly embrace them… No matter how terrifying facing hist past might be.

So he slowed his breathing, Duro overtaking Korriban. The bridge of the ship morphed and changed around him, and though his hands still gripped the console before him, he could feel the weight of that heavy, old, hooded robe and the presence of another at his back. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Alek—Malak already—standing tall and tight jawed, his eyes stormy as he stared at the… The travesty out the view port before them.

Through his mask, Revan could see what was happening.

Mandalorian fighters swarmed the Republic forces, shooting them from the sky. Entire transports exploded in orange and yellow bursts of plasma, close enough that the shock waves shook the ground beneath them and made the lights flicker. His throat was tight, his stomach churning, duty warring with uncertainty as his eyes fell back to his gloved hands and he realized that it had never been easy.

Whatever people thought of the Revanchist making his decisions to slowly pull away from the Jedi Order, at the time it had eaten him alive, the acid in his stomach making his hands grip the console more tightly to hide the shaking. Out there it was slaughter, but he was just a lone Jedi on a ship crewed by some Republic commander under the orders of the fleet command, responsible for the deaths of every Republic soldier that might be spared by someone with the brains to run this operation properly.

And just like always, that was what made the decision for him, even when everything else was falling down around him.

Even when he had already pushed the Jedi to their limit and nearly made himself a fugitive to the Order.

The death toll was too high and he was the only one with the power to do anything.

“We can’t let this happen,” he said, his voice drawing the eyes of every man, woman, and droid on the bridge to him. “Look at that. It’s a travesty, a complete rout, and all because someone decided to meet the Mandalorians head to head in their own game. Have we forgotten what happened on Taris? They occupy planets!”

No one responded, no one dared to breathe, their eyes nervous and flickering between Revan and Malak, who stood quietly at Revan’s side.

Pushing away from the console, Revan drew up to his full height, feeling the confidence burn in his stomach, the fire aided by the strength of his conviction. “I have a plan,” he said, “and any willing to follow me should know that there is the risk we will be charged with insubordination, but this plan will save lives and it may very well allow us to send real aid where it is needed.”

His hand extended, motioning towards Duro. “To the surface of that planet, where Basilisk War Droids terrorize workers and civilians alike. How do we dare stand idle when the world is on fire and our brothers and sisters in arms die in vain? Have the Mandalorians not taken enough lives?”

Already the inkling of a plan stirred inside of him, something that took advantage of the culture of his opponents, preyed on their strengths to make them a weakness. He could feel himself smile behind the mask, looking towards Malak, who was already smiling back at him as if he knew exactly what was going on in Revan’s mind.

Revan wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

Slowly the atmosphere in the room shifted, some people turning back to their work, though others stepped away from their duties. They turned to face Revan, the same conviction he felt burning in his chest lighting the depths of their eyes. That understanding, that loyalty to their cause, was something Revan could understand and respect.

Later, it was something he would use.

His head cleared, and once more he stood on the bridge in the present, remembering how he’d divided and conquered the Mandalorians that day. He and Malak had taken control of the bridge of the ship that day, drawing half the Mandalorian fleet away where they had stalled and waited for the scheduled reinforcements to arrive.

And arrive they did, to find two smaller Mandalorian forces that were much easier to defeat when they were isolated from one another.

That move alone had not saved Duro. There had been many weeks of fighting afterwards as they retook the planet, but it had been a start. It was the victory that was a turning point for the Republic, and the turning point in his own life, a lesson that you had to understand your enemy intimately in order to defeat them.

And no one understood the Sith better than Revan.

He had to look foolish to them as he approached the planet in a lone Destroyer. They had to think that he was arrogant, that they could play on his hubris to cause his downfall. The Sith Command on the planet would see what they perceived as weakness and they would act, perhaps thinking that their forces on Mannan and Nar Shaddaa had done more damage than they had initially assumed.

They would send what was left of their own fleet to greet him, and when they did the ships that Bastila and Carth commanded would finally come into view. They would come into view with surprise Interdictors commandeered during their other conquests, blocking the Sith escape, holding them here on Korriban where they would be forced to fight rather than flee.

And fight they would.

Their arrogance and anger would compel them to take on a much larger force when no recourse or escape was available to them any longer.

It would inevitably be their undoing.

Turning his head to look at those who joined him on the bridge, thinking about all the soldiers inside the city-sized Destroyer that awaited his orders, Revan felt the burden of command fall on his shoulders. The conflict today would not be without casualties. Somewhere, someone in the Republic was going to receive news that their loved one had died during battle, but they had come here knowing that was a possibility. Their lives would weigh on his shoulders for the rest of their lives, but they would die knowing that the people they loved would go on to see the new peace that was coming.

Living with those losses was what being the leader really meant.

Watching through the view port, Revan saw the first of the Sith ships rise through Korriban’s burning atmosphere, haloed in the red light reflecting from the planet’s sun-baked surface. They shone like the chromium droids of the Star Forge, a construct that couldn’t save them now, one that could produce no more ships, weapons, and soldiers to send into battle after its flesh and blood masters. It had died, just like a part of Revan had died on the Behemoth in shrapnel and fire.

And now here he was, not a mockery of that man but the once burning core that had driven him to do the right thing even in the face of ostracism from the very people who had instilled such strong beliefs in him in the first place.

Revan had died so that the best parts of him could live.

It was for Bastila’s sake that he believed this now, and for the sake of every person depending on his command in this battle.

Straightening, he walked towards the front of the bridge, feeling the eyes of his soldiers upon him as he clasped a wrist behind his back and stared out at their rapidly approaching opponent. For a moment longer he watched, counting the seconds in his head, old instincts awakened in him as he found that he felt comfortable here, like he was always meant to feel the burden of command, like it was a part of him that could not be destroyed any more than his passionate conviction.

“Prepare for combat,” he said simply, and around him the bridge burst into life.

* * *

The bridge shook and Revan moved with it.

In front of him there was battle but the Force radiated with the certainty reflected in the depths of his own soul as another group of Sith fighters was split down the middle by his own men. They scattered, Republic guns picking the tiny fighters off before they could get close enough to do real damage to any of the Frigates or transports, exploding in an array of plasma that was swallowed quickly by the vast nothingness of space.

“Fighter Group Senth has taken significant damages,” said one of the bridge personnel, a young green Twi’lek woman with bright eyes. “Would you like me to relay orders?”

“Tell them to draw back,” Revan said. “It won’t be long now before the Admiral’s bombers strike.”

She nodded, turning back to her console with purpose written on her features.

True to his word, bombers approached one of the Sith Destroyers from the rear, appearing from behind the massive Cruiser and swarm of fighters that had been shielding them from view as they deployed. The Sith were distracted, bombarded from all sides by a steady barrage of fire from Bastila’s third of their small allotment of ships and Revan and Carth’s fighters, so much so that their limited scanners couldn’t pick up what was right in front of them.

The moved fluidly, the Sith quickly scrambling to respond to the threat, though no matter what they did it didn’t quite seem to be enough. Revan could feel confidence in his own troops, the cool certainty that victory was upon them, and knew that it was the result of Bastila. Around them the Force swirled, a current of bright and calming energy that infused a part of itself into every person in their combined command.

He’d faced it often enough in combat that he knew what it had to be doing to the Sith right now, the havoc it had to be wreaking as another few fighters exploded nearby. Battle Meditation was a powerful tool, but one that should not be relied too heavily upon or those in your command would start to rely on it like a crutch, unsure how to act without that supernatural confidence blanketing them from the usual effects of fear.

He watched as the bombers slipped past the chaos, moving like sharks through a school of small, aggressive fish. They weren’t quick by any means, but they moved with threatening purpose as the Sith scrambled to confront them to the best of their ability. A few of them would be destroyed, the certainty something Revan couldn’t afford to dwell on too long in the heat of battle. Later there would be time to mourn the fallen, to memorialize their names and inform their families, but right now the Sith had to be stopped.

All he had to do was deal them a major blow to get the last of the true Sith trained in the academies to listen to him.

Of that he was absolutely certain.

With each moment that passed, the chaos of battle waged around him, but Revan felt comfortable at the helm. Here, taking his command, he didn’t need to worry about what would happen tomorrow or next month or next year. Revan only needed to concern himself with what was happening in front of him and with seeing his battle plan through to the end, no matter how much improvisation that might require in the process.

He doubted the Jedi would ever agree, but he felt most at peace in these kinds of situations.

It wasn’t that it made him feel happy, but distractions faded away and there was no more uncertainty to plague him, no more questions about who he was or whether or not his life was a life worth living. He had a purpose and a place to belong, a role to fulfill, as did every soldier under his command, and that was enough to stop him from doubting.

The bombers arrived, drifting over the massive Sith Destroyer and casting their shadows over its surface. Between them, ships darted and proton torpedoes flashed with the intensity of a small nuclear explosion. Against the Destroyer’s hull, smaller ships burst into shrapnel as they were damaged in the fighting, pieces of them flying off into space.

“Relay the order to begin the attack,” Revan said, the bridge bursting with another round of speech as the command crew scrambled to follow his orders.

Moments later the darkness sparked with blue and green light as bombs exploded, against the shields first, and then against the hull of the Destroyer. He watched as the ship shuddered, then closed his eyes, feeling the panic of the crew on the ship, knowing some of them would escape via the pods and that there was a chance they could pick up stragglers later on. The rest would die and return to the Force, and though Revan wished that more could be saved, this was war and actions had consequences.

This entire conflict was a result of his actions, after all.

He watched for what seemed like an eternity, the surviving bombers pulling away as the Destroyer split in two, the pieces of its hull pulled into Korriban’s orbit. It wasn’t like a sinking ship in an ocean where the depths would claim it, Revan thought. The pieces would float there forever, preserved until they were salvaged and the intact bodies of the dead could be interred.

It wasn’t long after the destruction of the Destroyer that the Twi’leki woman spoke again, her voice ringing clear over the soft conversations of the bridge. Out the view port Revan could see the Sith pulling away, the remaining Destroyer pulling back towards the planet as the few fighter squadrons left were recalled. His own people didn’t chase them, watching them go as they began their own journey back to the ships per his orders.

“A message from the surface, Commander,” the woman said.

“Patch it through.”

Revan wasn’t surprised when the shape that appeared on the holoprojector was Yuthara, though her eyes widened as she looked at him, their gazes momentarily locking. He’d left her alive only months ago, helping her depose her former Master to become Overseer of the entire Sith Academy, and it seemed now she was the closest thing they had to a Dark Lord.

Even over their tenuous link he could feel her rage and confusion, bubbling through her like the acid in Naga Sadow’s tomb, though she kept it under control. “I wasn’t expecting you to be the former Dark Lord, though somehow I’m not terribly surprised after all. I know you were too savvy to be any sort of normal student.”

“What can I say?” he said with a shrug. “I’m a good actor. I assume you’re here to ask for a ceasefire?”

He didn’t believe that was her true intent, certain that the Sith would fight to the last and that this was some sort of trick, but it didn’t bother him. They must not have the forces on the planet to hold even Dreshdae if the destruction of one Destroyer had prompted her to try to draw him back to the Academy and his demise.

“Yes,” she said easily. “You’ve made it clear that you intend to show us no mercy, and I would have something of the Sith teachings survive. However, I will only give our conditions to you, personally. If you refuse, I will kill every innocent person still in Dreshdae.”

“I won’t let any innocent people die on my behalf,” he said simply, “though I’m curious what you would have done if that hadn’t worked.”

An ironic smile played across Yuthara’s lips. “If you were anything like the old Dark Lord, you wouldn’t have bothered to answer in the first place and would have ordered the planet bombarded to cement your revenge against those who betrayed you. That you answered told me I could prey on your sentimentality.”

He searched her face, sensing her sincerity in that at least, and then nodded. “Fine. I’ll head to the surface in 24 hours with a small regiment. For now, I’ll give you time to gather your people and write up your conditions formally. You’ll uphold the ceasefire, or I’ll destroy what’s left of the Sith fleet.”

The woman nodded, and he felt her senses reach out, testing his conviction which held true.

“Very well,” she said at last. “I will see you at the entrance of the Sith Academy in 24 hours.”

With that the comm went dead, and Revan knew he could trust her to keep her word, this last of the Sith who would do anything to get back at him for his betrayal. Yes, he knew the Sith, knew what she would do, and knew that this was about her revenge for the wrong he had done to her and the rest of her people.

Bowing his head, Revan sighed, taking no pleasure in what had to be done, knowing that they would not surrender easily.

* * *

Carth came to find Revan to give a full report on his part in the battle, though it wouldn’t really have been necessary. In truth, he had finished his report an hour ago and they’d been spending the time since just shooting the breeze, talking about life in the city and different methods of handling smaller spacecraft in large scale combat.

Still, Revan wasn’t exactly surprised when Carth turned the topic of conversation to something more serious.

“I think you give yourself too little credit,” the Admiral said, leaning back in his seat as he pressed his cup to his lips and took a drink. “The men and women of the Republic are grateful to have you here.”

“They don’t know what happened,” Revan said simply, looking into Carth’s face, his own lips twitching up into a smile. “They don’t know that my mind was wiped like a droid’s. I’m back to factory settings, now.”

To his relief, Carth snorted, no scolding or chiding expression taking over his features. Instead, he rolled his eyes and Revan relaxed, finally feeling like whatever resentment Carth had felt had completely vanished and that they were friends again.

Just friends.

“They know what you were, and they know that you came back, in the end,” Carth said. “I think that’s all they need to know to have faith that things can get better. You’re an inspiration to them, just like you were back during the Mandalorian Wars, when we really needed to see someone stand up for the little guy.”

“I can’t help it if you’re all so short,” Revan said lightly, watching as Carth groaned in response.

“I’m serious, Revan. I know you’re a person now, but they don’t. To them you’re a symbol, and you always use that to your advantage.” Carth looked past Revan for a moment, his eyes distant as he thought about the Wars passed; wars that had defined both of their lives. “It’s still inspiring, seeing you work, but maybe not really in the same way. How you do it, I don’t know.”

“Honestly?” Revan asked, shrugging. “Either do I. Funny that it took coming out here for me to remember that I’m more than one thing. I almost wonder if that’s what happened, back during the war, if I lost myself to what people saw me as and let it consume me completely. It’s good to have people to ground me, Carth. People like you and Bastila.”

Alek and Meetra might have been that to him at one point, but both of them had used him as a symbol as much as they had seen him as a friend. He knew that now, looking back, remembering the admiration in Meetra’s eyes as she asked him question after question and took his orders, absorbing his views until they became her own and she was consumed with zealotry. And Alek… Alek, for whom Revan was the rod to measure his strength again, the goal to which to aspire, eaten away by jealousy that turned slowly to resentment and hatred until there was nothing left of the teamwork and understanding that had once held the two of them together.

Carth held him accountable when he slipped up, and Bastila admired him without seeing herself as his student.

And as much as Revan hated to admit it, that was what he had needed Alek and Meetra to be, because no matter how much he had loved them, devotion without understanding could morph into obsession and codependency.

“Time changes people,” Revan said after a moment. “It changed me. I’m smart enough to know now that I don’t have to be who I am on the bridge of this ship when I leave it. I wish I had known that when I was younger. It might have saved me.”

He watched Carth’s dark eyes, understanding flashing through their depths. Leaning forward, Carth placed his cup on the table between them and sighed, running his hand over the bottom of his face as he nodded. He looked… tired, and honestly Revan didn’t blame him for that, not when they’d already been through so much.

“I wish I’d known that, too,” Carth said. “I gave up a lot to the Republic, and neglected to give the same to my family. That’s how I lost Morgana, and how I almost lost Dustil. I… I mean honestly, I owe you even more of an apology than I thought I did,” he said with a sigh, worrying his lip between his teeth as he shook his head free of its demons. “I felt like I abandoned my family and I took that out on you, like you were the one who abandoned us. Sometimes you’re too much like a person, you know?”

Revan thought about Alek, and nodded.

“It feels like we have this conversation a lot,” Revan said. “I think maybe we both focus on it too much.”

“Focus on what too much?” Carth asked.

Revan looked at him, searching his face for a moment, before leaning back and running a hand over the back of his neck. “The past,” he said. “Your family’s not gone, Carth. You have Dustil, even if you have to get to know him again because he’s not the same boy you left on Telos all those years ago. And me? I have Bastila, and an entire future ahead of me. We don’t have to hate ourselves for the things we couldn’t do right as long as we learned from them.”

Even as he spoke Revan knew he would struggle with the self-hatred anyway.

How could he not, after all he’d seen and done?

There was so much blood on his hands, but if he reminded himself that there was blood on the ‘good guys’ hands too and kept on telling himself that he’d learned from the past, he could move on from it without forgetting it.

And that would be better for everyone.

Carth considered him, and when he smiled at last, it seemed like ten years dropped from his face in an instant. “You’re right,” he said, “I still have a son, a son I talk to every day, a son who I’m going to see when we get back to Coruscant. Morgana is gone, but she wouldn’t have wanted me to give up everything spending the rest of my life mourning her.”

He laughed, a small sound, just enough to light up the depths of his eyes with amusement as he shook his head. “We’re stubborn old idiots, you know that, right?”

“Believe me, I know,” Revan said, sharing Carth’s smile. “There’s not a day Bastila doesn’t call me stubborn, but… Well, so is she. I don’t think she could put up with me otherwise.”

They locked eyes, Carth’s expression softening, his smile turning knowing. “So things are working out with you?”

“We’ve talked,” Revan said. “She’s decided that she can’t spend the rest of her life living in the shadow of the impossible expectations put on her. It’s a better place for her to be, I think, following her instincts and living by learning from her mistakes rather than berating herself for them and obsessing over her failures. I think I could stand to learn from her adaptability.”

“I think maybe you already have,” Carth said with a laugh. “It pays to be flexible.”

“That it does,” Revan replied with a chuckle, glancing briefly at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got to get going, Carth, get some sleep before we go planetside tomorrow. It’s… Time for this to end. I just wish so many lives didn’t have to be lost for us to get here.”

Carth’s silence rang in agreement, the only sound the soft ticking of the clock as it wore away the seconds to the dawn.


	9. Chapter Nine

Bastila lay against him, her head against his chest, the depth of her breathing revealing that she was already awake. It was probably force of habit, he thought with a small smile, his fingers running slowly through her hair, that Jedi were cursed to wake up so early after a lifetime of morning meditations. There hadn’t been much meditation the night before for either of them, Bastila’s restless energy put into a different kind of oath that had lead to tangled limbs and greeting the morning together.

Slowly she opened her eyes, blinking as she looked up into his face. Reaching up, she ran a hand over the side of his face, the pads of her fingers rubbing against his stubble, before she pulled herself closer for a kiss. Breaking away a moment later, she smiled sleepily, laying her head back against his shoulder, and muttering a muffled good morning.

“Good morning,” he whispered back, kissing her forehead before he let his head fall back against the pillow.

For a while they stayed that way, enjoying the closeness, until her anxiety began to mount at the inevitable realization that the rest of the day would have to happen. Reaching out, he cupped her face, offering her a small smile that he hoped was reassuring. “Something on your mind, Princess?”

He laughed when she hit his chest, pulling away from him ever so slightly to stare up at him incredulously. “Revan! I told you not to call me that!”

Revan grinned, sitting up and leaning against the headboard, Bastila following him. She leaned against his shoulder, sighing heavily. “The last time I was on Korriban, Malak tortured me until I Fell.”

The words made him feel sick, his grip on her tightening. Reaching out, he brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his brow furrowing deeply as he thought about the pain she faced alone. He had seen that pain in his nightmares, felt it roiling through his stomach like the clouds on Malachor V, though she’d tried to spare him from it at the time. It had been a selfless act, but he wondered now if he could have done something had she let him in, though there wasn’t much point in thinking about it.

“I’m afraid of facing them,” Bastila said after a moment, her voice muffled by his skin. “What if being on the planet causes me to Fall again? What if I lose myself to the hatred and the pain?”

“I would never ask you to go with me if you don’t want to,” Revan said, fighting back a wave of amusement as she pulled away to stare up incredulously into his face, her hair mussed, blue eyes blazing.

“I need to face it,” she said resolutely. “You’ve already faced the darkest parts of yourself, Revan. How could I do anything less?”

Bastila looked away, her hold on him tightening as she bowed her head. He could feel her tremble in his arms, feeling uncharacteristically small and fragile against his chest, and when she spoke there was a quaver to her voice. “I must overcome the things I did, and I must accept the fact that I did them willingly. Sometimes it feels as though I were simply under a geas, but to tell myself that I was is a lie I can no longer abide by.” She looked up into his face, cupping his jaw, the flesh of her palm scraping along his stubble. “And I will continue to tell myself that I bear no culpability if I do not take responsibility for the Sith and bring them to bear for their crimes.”

Revan felt a pang in his chest, his throat growing tight as he reached out, cupping her face in both of his hands. He pressed a swift kiss to her lips, then to the tip of her nose, and then finally to her forehead, closing his eyes as he rested his face there, breathing in her presence, heart still aching at the thought of what she had gone through, knowing he may well have put her through worse if Malak had not nearly torn him apart through his betrayal.

“Bastila—”

She cut him off with another kiss, his eyes opening as she pulled away, placing her hands over his own. “I don’t believe I have ever really told you how handsome you are,” she said, her voice shy. “You have this way about you, this sincerity, that shows through your every movement. You have beautiful eyes, Revan.”

He felt his face grow hot and he bowed his head, dropping his gaze and chuckling. “I’m tall, gangly, and I have a wide mouth.”

“And an infectious smile.”

For a moment the two of them were quiet, Bastila clinging to Revan who held her back. His mind whirred with things he could say to her, searching for any way he could reassure her, feeling the way her spirit still trembled, so afraid and uncertain of the future. At last, he settled on something, lifting his head to look at her as he brushed errant strands of her hair from her face.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with feeling that fear as long as you stare it in the face when the time comes instead of letting it sink its claws into you. Sometimes, it can even be helpful. At least it lets us know when it’s there, unlike jealousy or even anger.” Revan took a breath, closing his eyes again and gathering his thoughts before he continued. “And in the end, all fear is is the memory of loss or pain that we need to overcome.”

Bastila stared at him with her wide, blue eyes for a moment before she pressed herself close to his body and kissed him with a conviction that shook him to his core. Melting into her touch, he felt his spirit turn fluid, his emotions melding with hers until he wasn’t certain where one of them began and the other ended.

When at last she broke away he felt breathless and weak, reaching up to run his thumb across her lips with at trembling hand.

“It was the Jedi who taught me to be afraid,” she said quietly. “They showed me that I could not trust myself or my own emotions. Malak used that fear, he preyed on it and turned it into hatred and resentment. I’m not certain I can ever truly recover from what was done to me, but I do know that I can learn to forgive the Jedi, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you taught me what it truly means to be strong… And,” she muttered, “to be weak.”

Smiling softly, Revan looked down into her face, trailing his fingertips along her cheekbone, watching as she leaned into his touch. His heart soared, caught in his throat at the thought that she could ever return his love with a tender kindness he had never known, one he did not deserve but greedily accepted regardless. It was a gift given freely, and he would never turn away from her as long as she still wanted him, no matter whether that was for five years or the rest of eternity.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, voice bubbling over with emotion. “No matter what happens next, I’m here for you.”

“I know,” Bastila said as she smiled, and then kissed him again.

Revan surrendered to her touch, grateful that they didn’t have to get up just yet.

* * *

Revan looked out at the rogue’s gallery gathered in the cantina under the watchful eye of the Republic. Some of them looked resentful, others stoic, but he could sense the resignation in all of them, the recognition that the protection of the Sith had expired. They were intelligent enough to side with the winners, and now that the heart and soul that fueled the Sith had extinguished, they were willing to take their chances with the Republic rather than depend on the last flickering wisps of Sith depravity to protect them.

After all, depravity was selfish.

Why would the fast fading fire of the Sith reach out to protect those for which it had once been a safe harbor?

“The area is secure?” Revan asked the officer standing next to him, the woman saluting before she replied.

“Yes, Sir. We’ll stay in contact with the Admiral if the criminals get rowdy,” she motioned towards the rabble vaguely. “You should be clear to take a force to the Academy now.”

“Good,” he said, a small smile passing over his lips. “You’re in charge while I’m gone. Avoid casualties at all costs and prepare for prisoners.”

“Prisoners, Master Revan?” the woman queried.

“Yes, prisoners,” Revan said with a wide smile. “Come on, Captain, you don’t think I’m going to give up on the Sith, do you? That would be more than a bit hypocritical.”

“Point… Point taken,” she said, sounding abashed. “May the Force be with you?”

His smile widened ever so slightly. “And may it be with you, Captain.”

Turning away, his eyes met Bastila’s from across the room ever so briefly, though she quickly looked away and returned to her task of preparing their small strike force for what they might encounter in the Academy. Leaning against the wall, Revan glanced towards HK-47, who had come to stand next to him, staring at Bastila with an expression on his mechanical face that could only be called curious.

“Call her a meatbag, HK, and I’ll replace your vocabulator with a receptionist droid’s,” he said casually, listening to the droid’s mechanical snort and the electronic chortling of T3 nearby.

“Observation: It is the busty human Jedi that has made you a sentimental wreck, Master.”

“Busty human…” Revan sighed. “Yes, HK. It’s called attachment. You know, like you and your flamethrower?” He reached out, patting HK on the shoulder. “Relax. You get to set people on fire today. When it comes to indiscriminate destruction, you’ll always be my number one.”

Casting the droid a cheeky grin, Revan pushed away from the wall, walking towards Bastila and the men. Their eyes fell on him, though their attention remained monopolized by Bastila, who was finishing her discussion of the plan they’d come up with that morning with Carth. She looked comfortable in the lead, reminding him keenly that this was the woman who had single-handedly put the Sith Empire on the ropes through pure determination and her incredible gifts.

They had both come a long way since then.

Without any more fanfare, they set out with their little strike force. Korriban was still oppressively hot and dry, pulsing with the spirit of the Dark Side itself, singing from every stone in its low and seductive tone. He could tell that part of it was getting to Bastila, especially as they neared the shadow of the Academy, looming over them like a promise—and in truth, Revan was expecting an ambush.

Things would turn sour quickly when dealing with the last Force Sensitive stronghold of the Sith. Memories of this place slid up his spine, to the base of his brain, old, sluggish recollections of its construction and of filling it with students, supplicants from all over the Galaxy who had come to him willingly. At the time, Revan remembered feeling as though he could bring the entire Galaxy to its knees, and remembering the Star Forge and the loyalty of an army millions large he actually might have been able to do it, if it hadn’t been for Malak’s betrayal and Bastila’s single act of mercy towards him.

It was that single act of mercy he intended to extend towards the remaining Sith now, holding his head high as he entered into the cool and shadowy depths of the Academy. Footsteps echoing against the stone, he traveled the familiar path towards the common chamber, still feeling the stones of the very building whisper secrets to him as they had the last time he’d entered it.

Glancing towards Bastila, her emotions frantic, he found her expression impassive as they finally came face to face with Yuthara and the last of the Sith.

“So you came after all,” the Twi’lek said, stepping forward to greet him, her eyes burning like twin stars. “How odd, to find myself at last in the presence of the last remaining Dark Lord, traitor to the Jedi and the Sith alike. Tell me, what does that make you, if you are neither?”

“Am I neither?” Revan asked her, reaching up to run a hand over his stubble. “Or am I both? Not even the Jedi seem to know the answer to that one and they hold the most ancient wisdom in the Galaxy, so I’m afraid little old me can’t actually give you an answer.” He narrowed his eyes, sliding his gaze over the few dozen Sith still remaining. “But forget about me. We’re here to talk about you and your terms, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Yuthara conceded, “we are.”

She took a step forward, staring up into his face, something in the line of her jaw that sent his senses into overdrive. Intention burned in the depths of her gaze, leading him to react before he could even think about the movement of her arm or the arc of a red saber as it sliced through the air, attempting to sever his arm from his torso.

Jumping backwards Revan ignited his sabers midair, and for a moment the sound of humming was the only thing that could be heard.

It vibrated through his bones, old instincts tugged back to the surface by the threat of death as his eyes dilated, the glowing yellow ring around his irises growing more apparent in the dim stuffiness of the Academy’s Great Hall. Taking a breath, he leveled the edge of his violet blade at Yuthara, the burning hatred in her stare filling him with choking regret.

“Shoot to incapacitate,” he ordered, “but don’t hesitate to kill if they get too close.”

And then the dance began.

Revan fell into step with one of the Sith, moving with fluidity as he parried a blow with one of his sabers and lashed out with the other, forcing his opponent to dodge or be wounded. Driving forward, he channeled all his ferocity into a burst of speed, watching as the man startled himself and tripped backwards, his head hitting the ground hard.

Turning, Revan spun to face his other potential opponents, tuning out the bedlam of battle around him to live in the moment. Leaping into the air, he landed in the center of several Sith, turning his eyes upon them one at a time as they stood, frozen and staring at him with wide eyes and gaping mouths. Grinning, Revan pushed one of them against the wall as he lashed out with the Force, deflecting a blow from a second before he spun around, slicing a third across the torso before he could bring down his blade.

Soon he lost himself to the rhythm of it, their dance drawing to a close with a cry of surprise as Yuthara tripped and fell backwards. Revan turned, watching as the tip of Bastila’s yellow blade hovered at her throat for just a moment too long, staring down into the Sith Overseer’s face, the orange around her blue eyes seeming to pulse before she kicked Yuthara’s blade away and pulled the woman to her feet.

Quickly, the task force surged to place her and any survivors under arrest, though looking around at the bodies it seemed that not many of the Sith had survived… And that a few of their own had rejoined the Force. He would need to send a crew into the Academy to recover the bodies so that the remains could be received by their families before he ordered the building destroyed and the passage to the Valley of the Dark Lords collapsed, but for now it was time to take their prisoners to the brig.

“Take them back to Dreshdae,” Revan said, walking towards Bastila, reaching out a hand to place it on her shoulder, “and have a shuttle arranged to transport them back to the flagship. It looks like clean up is all that’s left.”

It felt odd to say the words after so much of his life and his memory had been dominated by the Sith. Without them, there was a void of purpose in his life, something that he didn’t know how to fill… Until he glanced at Bastila, who was looking up at him with relief etched into her features, and he remembered that he could forge whatever future he wanted.

Perhaps he had finally made up for his mistakes, he thought.

Perhaps he could finally move on.

If only the Jedi would let him.

* * *

The demand rang through the cell block like a bell, lingering in Revan’s ears long enough that it felt like someone had struck a tuning fork by his head. Reaching up, he rubbed the back of his neck, staring into the face of the defiant blue Twi’lek, who glared up at him with nothing short of utter hatred in her eyes, though there was a tinge of betrayal there, as well. The words she’d spoken a few days ago came back to him, accusations of betrayal when she’d made it clear that no terms of surrender could ever be good enough for her and that she would rather die than face a future without the Sith.

So much like Lashowe, though this time his response had been different.

This time, the Sith demanding death would have to live to see their tomorrow.

“It’s not like I agree with the Jedi, either,” Revan admitted, sitting down on the bench directly across from her cell, his senses trained more on Bastila and her discomfort than the captive former Sith Overseer, “but whatever my goal was, the Sith aren’t a solution.”

“You brought us freedom from the Code,” hissed Yuthara from behind a wall of green energy, her hands pressing against the containment field. “And then you turned your backs on us, on everything you fought for! We were meant to bring peace to the Galaxy through Order and Strength, to bring an end to the petty infighting that the Republic represents and destroy the rot of the Jedi Order!”

“Rot’s a bit of a strong word,” Revan drawled, leaning forward as he locked eyes with her. “They’re more like a stagnant pool, swallowing all light and life as they pull people into their depths. It goes deep, this pool, and the serenity is so suffocating sometimes that you feel like you want to scream, but at least when you’re thirsty they’ll give you a drink. The Sith burn everything down and call it progress instead of destruction. If I hadn’t changed and fudged some of the bylines of the Code and kept the Republic infrastructure, would we have had anything at all?”

He didn’t let her speak but instead stood and walked towards her cell, staring her in the eyes as he clasped his hands behind his back. “There are other ways to make the Galaxy stronger, ways that maybe one day someone other than me or you will find. The Sith can’t fix the Republic by breaking it, Yuthara. We never could.”

It seemed she might consider his words for a split second—though Revan knew better than to hold out hope, so his heart didn’t sink when she slammed her hands violently against the energy field, her voice spitting acid, anger snapping across the space between them like a bare wire. “The Sith are Strength and Order,” she hissed. “You taught us that. But you threw that away for a pair of pretty eyes and the comfort of conformity!”

Revan opened his mouth to protest, but Bastila beat him to it, standing and crossing the room in a few quick bounds. “The Sith betrayed Revan!” she snapped, her eyes as cold as a glacier, though they flickered like flame. “They teach nothing but selfishness and the indulgence of every urge without temperance and it destroyed whatever good remained in Malak so that he turned his guns on a man he would have once lain down his life for!”

“He eliminated his weakness,” Yuthara said with cold venom in her voice. “That culling of attachments is what makes our leaders strong, something you should know, as his former apprentice.”

Rage flickered like a pulsar in the back of Revan’s mind, rage not his own. Reaching out, he placed a hand on Bastila’s shoulder, feeling her anger subside as she reached out, placing a single, small hand against the energy field, staring into Yuthara’s face with her typical single-minded intensity.”You are just like the Jedi,” she said quietly, “missing a vital part of themselves. Both of you are sorely misguided, whatever part of you was based in something justified, once. You both deny affection and compassion, and in so doing you betray the very core of your own being, the part that desires others to help it maintain its balance.”

“Spoken just like a Jedi,” the Sith Overseer hissed, her knuckles turning pale as she squeezed them into stone-tight fists and pounded them against the walls of her cage. “Being anchored is pointless if you fear change! No matter how different you think you are from them, you’ll just end up in the same place if you refuse the natural evolutionary calling of the Force.”

The words struck Revan, dumbfounding him as they brought something to the surface of his mind, old memories of words he had once spoken to the Sith long ago. It was his philosophy Yuthara spat back at them now like a kinrath trying to immobilize and paralyze its potential prey with the spray from its mandibles.

“You accept conflict but deny the change that bonds can bring,” Bastila said, reaching up to cover Revan’s hand with her own, drawing him from his thoughts. “In doing so, you harm yourselves and poison the world around you. I am denying neither, not any longer.”

“She’s right, you know,” Revan said quietly, staring Yuthara in the eyes, freezing her in place. “There’s nothing wrong with the Sith philosophy of drawing strength from emotion, just like there’s nothing wrong with the Jedi philosophy of drawing purpose from peace. But those things have to be met with self-awareness, focused with an understanding that the Force is not a tool nor a guide, but the river in which we have been swept up, leading us all to its destination.”

He bowed his head, releasing her from his gaze, his age washing over him like that metaphorical river.

For the first time in a long time he felt the full weight of his years weighing heavily on his shoulders, the full knowledge of who he was and what he had been set on his shoulders like a mantle. Taking a deep breath, he continued, his eyes staring through the barrier of her cell at nothing. “It’s taken me a decade’s worth of loss and suffering to learn that I don’t have all the answers, and that I need to look to the source to find them. If I’m a traitor, Yuthara, it’s only because the Jedi and Sith both left me with nothing but bitterness and a lack of meaning. It was only by stepping away from all that that I started to feel hope again, and that I realized someday this eternal struggle will end and that balance will return to the Force… Even if we’re not the ones to end it.”

Revan raised his head, looking at her face, watching as her eyes widened.

He could see that she was lost in the current of her own thoughts, pulled down into their deep streams, whatever kernel of wisdom she’d displayed in letting him leave the Academy sparking something in her soul. It was over in an instant, but it was enough to make him think that one day, in some small way, she might be pulled back to the center by the doubt he and Bastila had seeded in her broken soul.

If he had learned anything from all of this, it was that only compassion, love, and mercy where none should be given could lift someone up from the place where they Fell.

The Jedi were wrong about the Sith as much as the Sith were mistaken about the Jedi.

And it was with that thought still ringing in his mind that he and Bastila left the brig to prepare for their inevitable return to Coruscant.


	10. Chapter Ten

Carth would always say that, in retrospect, it probably wasn’t entirely necessary to stop to refuel before returning to Coruscant but that he was glad he’d done it anyway.

Looking at the expressions on the faces of the crew, torn between ecstatic joy and deep relief, Revan found it difficult to disagree with him. They were laughing, dancing across the mess hall, some of them acting their age while others shed their excess years to celebrate the true and final demise of the Sith the way that the civilian population had months ago.

He was happy for them, overjoyed, really.

After all they had been through, it was really the least they deserved, and he hoped that they could return to peaceful patrols after this or that they could retire to whatever planet they wanted in peace and live out the rest of their days without the threat of war looming over them. Still, in this Galaxy that was a bit hard to manage--Revan himself was a child of war, the result of a union between a Sith deserter and a Mandalorian woman, as his file in the Jedi Temple had revealed to him.

He was a war baby, brought about by Exar Kun’s attempted domination of the Republic, and it had shaped him in every way nearly as much as the Force had. The thought made it hard to relax until he felt Bastila’s presence, her hand ghosting over his bicep as she came to stand next to him, looking upon the milling bodies of the soldiers.

Reaching out, he brushed his fingers over the back of her knuckles, offering her a small smile out of the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t think you’d show up. Thought all the music and revelry would be a bit too loud for you.”

“Usually you’d be right,” Bastila admitted, “but in this case I was willing to make an exception. I believe they’ve earned this, and I helped lead many of them in battle. I would feel like I was cheating them if I didn’t attend.”

“To be honest?” Revan replied with a shrug, “I don’t really think they’d notice.”

Her face flushed slightly, but she smiled, dropping her arm back to her side as she continued to stare out into the crowd. For a long time she just stayed the way, watching them laugh, some of them dancing to the beat of the music that played from a distant corner of the room, a holo of a popular band spilling light and sound as a group of soldiers clapped to the beat.

Then, turning to look at him, she spoke.

“Soon this will all end. We will both have to go back to reality and face the Jedi Council,” she said, not looking him in the eye. “I fear what that might mean, Revan. I’ve come to value my independence just as much as I did last time, and I’m not certain what this will mean for…” She trailed off, taking a deep breath, her hands grasping the front of her robes tightly, “for us.”

The words were…

Well, he hadn’t exactly been NOT expecting them, really. Revan knew that they would be coming, but he didn’t expect them now, their tone dissonant, crashing his mood as he joined her, stepping up beside her and staring out at the happy faces. For them this was over, but for Revan and Bastila? Maybe it was just beginning. For a Jedi, this sort of thing couldn’t ever really be over, could it? Even if a few of them managed to live out the rest of their lives without getting involved in another conflict, one day Bastila and Revan would either be Jedi like Bindo or like Vrook and Vandar.

They would either turn away from their responsibility or embrace it.

“Yeah, that sure is a damn question,” Revan said. “I guess it’s… it depends on a lot of things, really.”

He sighed, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling, “Do you want to stay with the Jedi? Do you want to leave? What happens if you do leave? Can either of us even making a living on our own when our only skills involve Jedi things?”

“I want to stay,” Bastila said with very little hesitation, though her voice wavered with worry. “The Jedi are not perfect, but they have the potential to do so much good. I can’t turn my back on that dream, even if there are parts of what they teach that I wish to reject with my entire being.”

It hurt to hear her say it, felt like a step back, but he also recognized he didn’t quite have all the information he needed yet. Reacting emotionally to this would just hurt them both, so he swallowed his overreaction, closed his eyes, and soldiered on, “then you’re going to submit to their retraining once you get back?”

He could feel her shock, brought to the front of her mind with a powerful jolt.

“I… I had forgotten,” Bastila muttered, turning her blue eyes towards him.

Exhaling, he took a step closer to her, reaching out to tuck a strand of her behind her ear. His eyes searched her face, his brows furrowing as they locked eyes, uncertainty pulsing briefly between them. She looked afraid at the possibilities that the future offered, which was never a good thing, not without a bit of perspective offered up, anyway… Something he knew from his terrifying moments alone on the Hawk just after Malak had destroyed his entire sense of self-perception and he’d lost the only person who had been grounding him to reality.

“Bastila,” he said, pitching his voice so that only she could hear it, “We don’t have to decide right now, just know that whatever we do choose, you’re not going to lose me.”

Her eyes widened, one of her hands shooting out to grab his wrist. Slowly, the anxiety eased from her features and she smiled up at him, fear and uncertainty replaced by a sad sort of resolve, one that was all too familiar to Revan himself. Whatever was going to happen, they wouldn’t decide now, but when they did? They would decide it together, because he had made a promise to her, one that he had never vocalized, one that maybe he should before all was said and done.

He would never leave her to make decisions that could shake the entire foundation of her future alone, not if she let him in.

Bastila’s smile slowly softened as she tugged on his sleeve, pulling him away from the mess hall and the soldiers milling about, a secret playfulness blooming in the depths of her beautiful, blue eyes. His lips twitching up into a lazy grin, he allowed her to pull him along, wanting nothing more than to sweep her up into his arms and hold her.

“Come on, Revan,” Bastila said in a voice only for him, “I can think of things to do that are far more interesting than standing around talking.”

In truth, Revan couldn’t agree more when it came to her.

* * *

The military port was filled with bustling bodies--alien, human, and droid alike.

Their chatter filled Revan’s ears, the familiar smells and sights of Coruscant putting him more at ease than he thought he would be while waiting for a Jedi transport to ferry him back to that damned Temple. He had grown up there, spent his time as a toddler chasing the robes of the Creche Mothers, but it felt like a prison now, an elaborate cage where the Order could put him on display to prove a benevolence that did not belong to them. Bastila looked even worse for the wear, he face pale and drawn as she stood, staring with distracted and tired blue eyes into the crowd without any sort of focus.

It felt like an ending, even more than it had when they’d escaped from the Star Forge.

Everything was finally drawing to a close, the story nearly at the last page, the loose ends nearly tied.

After this, life continued on without the point it had had for the last year, without any goal to work towards… And with so little of who he had been before to ground him, with everything he knew about himself being related to war and destiny, Revan wasn’t sure who he’d be after the curtain finally fell.

“Getting about ready to head back to life planetside?” Carth asked, stepping up between he and Bastila. “Next time I’m on shore leave, I’ll have to look you up.”

“I look forward to it,” Revan said with a small smile, casting the Admiral a glance. “More than I’m looking forward to the next four days of debriefings, at least.”

The sound of a repulsorlift and the sensation of Bastila growing even more anxious drew his eyes to the distance, across the port. It wasn’t hard to notice the Jedi Order’s familiar iconography on the hood of the speeder, his heart falling even as he straightened his spine, standing at perfect Jedi attention. It was out of habit, he thought vaguely, an old response to something that had been part of his daily life since he was nary more than an infant.

“You two know you don’t have to stay, right?” Carth asked, dropping his voice, which nonetheless drew two pairs of Jedi eyes.

“We know,” Revan said, already resigned to the fact that they would stay, if only to make more of a difference in the Galaxy; it was a commitment to doing the right thing.

Carth hesitated at Revan’s response, and then took a step forward, his hands wavering in midair before he placed one and Bastila’s shoulder and the other on Revan’s arm. His expression was serious, his brown eyes filled with a deep emotion that communicated earnestness more than anything else, screaming of the sincerity of a friend who wished the best for people he genuinely cared about.

When he was still Cassus Jaylen, he never could have imagined that expression on Carth’s face, not directed towards him, but things had changed and he was grateful… More grateful than he could ever really clearly express.

“If you stay, you don’t have to follow all their rules,” Carth said. “What I admire about you both the most is your ability to disregard bad orders. You defied the Jedi Council and put yourself at risk to save the people of the Outer Rim and assist the Republic,” Carth continued in an impassioned whisper. “And you, Bastila, showed compassion to the one man no one would have wanted you to save and then put yourself at risk by trying to help him save the Galaxy through your Bond.”

Bastila’s eyes widened, her bottom lip trembling, before she reached up to briefly cover Carth’s hand with her own. It was more emotion than she typically showed, and Revan could see the way her fingers shook as she squeezed his hand, his words stirring a powerful emotion in her that lasted only an instant, not enough time for Revan to be able to identify it.

“Thank you,” she muttered, and then dropped her hand back to her side, pulling away to look at the speeder. “I’ll intercept them, Revan,” she said, glancing up into his face ever so briefly. “It’s best we go separately, in any case. It should prevent them from picking up on the exact tenor of our feelings.”

Without bothering to give Carth an explanation, she turned completely away and began to walk towards the speeder, a purpose in her stride that captured Revan’s stare for a long moment. Eventually, he turned his attention back to Carth, who still looked at him with that down-to-earth expression, though a bit of shock lingered on his face from Bastila’s uncharacteristic display of emotion.

He thought, maybe, that the exchange was something they had both needed.

Bastila and Carth seldom got along, but after everything they had been there together, there was a respect there, and this?

This gave them both a kind of closure.

“She’s a good woman, Revan,” Carth said. “Not my type, but clearly good for you, someone who can keep you in line.”

Revan laughed softly at that, shaking his head from side to side as he reached up to rub the back of his neck, his smile not fading. “Well, you’re not wrong, that’s for sure. I’ll admit, I’m a pretty kriffing lucky man to have a woman like her by my side… And a friend like you.”

Carth smiled, snorting, though his mirth didn’t last long. It was replaced by an expression even more serious than his last as he took another half step closer to Revan, his grip on his arm tightening, “Don’t let her go. A woman like her? That kind of love is pretty damn rare.”

“I know,” Revan said, letting regret seep into his own voice, and though he didn’t vocalize it, words still hung in the air between them.

_ She’s the only one who could ever love a monster like me. _

“Good luck, Revan,” Carth said after another silent moment, pulling away. “Something tells me that you’re going to need it. The High Council has always looked pretty damn dour to me.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Revan said with a wry smile and a shrug. “Take care of yourself, and Carth?”

Carth locked eyes with him for half a second before Revan bowed, an old habit that he would never be able to shake until they day he died, he was certain. “May the Force be with you.”

He turned away, jogging off across the complex, his long strides bringing him to Bastila and the speeder in short work. Glancing around, he saw that it was only Juhani who had come to greet them, already helping Bastila load the droids into the back of the vehicle, her yellow eyes shifting towards him as he shuffled to a stop. She smiled, tips of her white teeth poking out from underneath her furred brown skin, ears twitching in a familiar display of recognition.

Relief flooded over him at the sight of her, feeling like he had somehow earned more time to talk to Bastila about what was to come so that they could come to a conclusion about the future… Together. There would be no more making decisions alone, not when he intended to stay with her, no matter what consequences the Order might force upon him, should she let him stay.

For now, he simply took his seat, staring up at the labyrinth of skyscrapers and cross walks above, strips of blue peering through the gaps, waiting for their ride back to the Temple to begin.

* * *

 

The room had been silent for well over ten minutes by the time either of them spoke and broke the tension that had beset them the moment they’d stepped through the front gates of the Temple. Neither of them was really sure when they might be interrupted or how long it would take for the Jedi High Council to finish whichever meeting they were currently engaged in to address the problem of the Prodigal Knight and their failed prodigy.

That threat had stolen the words from their lips and nearly crushed their lungs, making it difficult for them to breathe in the oppressive air of judgment that suddenly surrounded them. Revan felt very much like a scolded child standing in the corner while resentfully awaiting for his parents’ approval to leave after they had demanded he ‘think about what he had done’. The threat of further punishment loomed over his head if he didn’t give them the right answer when they asked him what he had learned from the experience, when in truth he felt they were just punishing him for something all kids probably did.

It was difficult not to be resentful, especially when they both risked losing more than the Jedi High Council would ever understand.

And it was because they wouldn’t understand, because he knew that resentment would fester if he didn’t express it, that the words finally came to his lips and he found the strength to speak; after all, he didn’t want to risk ever becoming Darth Revan again. “I agree with you, you know, even if I hate to admit it.”

“About what?” Bastila asked, looking up into his face from where she sat, though she had formerly been staring at her own hands, laced together in her lap.

“The Jedi,” Revan announced, standing and glancing towards the door, reaching out with his senses to feel … Nothing. They were still safely alone, still without any kind of interference or chaperone to prevent him from clearly expressing his feelings. “They’re the Greatest Good this Galaxy has seen in a long time. Every Force Sensitive hero for the last several hundred thousand years hasd stemmed from the Order, and they’ve guided the destiny of the Republic more than once. Without their organization and resources, it would be much more difficult for the Republic to keep the peace, and I can’t imagine myself leaving when I want to still do good.”

He smiled sheepishly, glancing down at one of his gloved hand., “I have a lot to make up for.”

She seemed ready to protest, but Revan held up his hand, wanting to continue, not sure how much time he would have before he wouldn’t be able to speak his piece. “That’s why I intend to follow you back into the Order, but you should know that I have no intention of hiding my feelings for you. Carth was right about something, at least —”

Revan shrugged, flashing a brilliant smile, his eyes focusing on Bastila, “I’ve always been good at pissing off the sanctimonious higher ups and breaking all their rules.”

Reaching up, he rubbed the back of his neck, tipping his head back as he stared at the bland beige ceiling, searching for the words he wanted to say. “It was you who saved me by showing me that I could still save myself. Your compassion towards me, your understanding, brought me back from the brink and showed me the value in this world again. To pretend I don’t love you? That would be a violation of what I believe in, of what I am convinced is the raw heart of the Force.”

Dropping his gaze, Revan turned around, taking a step towards her before taking the seat beside her. “Love and dedication, devotion to a cause, the ability to use your emotions without ever losing sight of what’s truly important… That’s Balance. That’s the center of the Force, and I won’t turn away from that, not after it took me this long to find the truth.”

Her small, warm hand covered his, and she looked up into his face, drawing him into her gaze with quiet intensity. Slowly, her other hand reached upwards, brushing along his cheekbone briefly before it fell back to her lap, where she stared at their hands as he entwined their fingers. “I believe that we have lost sight of the truth in the Code,” she confessed, “and as much as it terrifies me, as uncertain as the future is, I have no intention of backing away from you now.”

Bastila took a breath, and he could feel her heart waver in her chest, reaching out to wrap her in his arms. As she melted against his chest, her breathing calmed and she buried her face in his cloak, her voice muffled when she once again managed to find her voice. “I love you,” she said. “I am more devoted to you than I ever thought possible, but I know now that this is not a weakness. Whatever comes next, I want to face it together.”

“Even if they excommunicate us for pulling a Bindo?” Revan asked softly, trying to lighten the mood.

Bastila, though, seemed to take it seriously, for as she pulled away, her eyes were burning with the fires of determination. “Especially if they excommunicate us.”

Revan smiled, cupping her face and pressing a kiss to her forehead, his love for her granting him a sense of peace that he didn’t think possible. Even through the nervousness he felt at the inevitable confrontation with the Jedi Council, even though a yawning and uncertain future, one as unclear as his past, stared him down, she grounded him to reality. Bastila made him a better man.

“Thank you,” he whispered, leaning forward as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You never abandoned me, even when you could have. You held me accountable, but you never stopped caring. Without that? I don’t know what I’d be.”

“I feel the same,” she replied, her voice barely a breath. “You see me, when everyone else sees only a harsh and uncompromising woman, somehow you saw through to my heart. Perhaps I had to learn to overcome my own self-denial, perhaps I had to learn to love selflessly, and the Force brought me to you so that I could learn to overcome my fear and doubt.”

Revan chuckled softly at that, though he couldn’t think of a proper response.

Instead, he leaned forward, sharing a tender kiss with her, pulling away only when he felt the encroaching presence of the Jedi High Council. With every passing second they grew closer, leaving him with only moments to decide what to do. He deliberated for only a few seconds, his eyes falling closed as he dropped his hands back to his lap.

Then, with a wide grin, he stood, locking eyes with Bastila as he extended a single hand towards her.

She glanced at it, then looked back into his face before returning his smile and reaching out to take it, letting him pull her to his feet.

Then, together, hands still clasped, they turned to face the door as it slid open.


End file.
